


The Proposal of Doom

by 27dragons, tisfan



Series: Tales from the Communal Kitchen (the ex-assassins files) [14]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Arguing, Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov (background) - Freeform, Canon-Typical Disregard for the Laws of Physics, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Humor, Jealousy, Jessica Jones/Steve Rogers (background), M/M, Marriage Proposal, Weddings, do not let natasha have a sharpie, mom and dad are fighting, nevermind she'll find one anyway, serious lack of game, silliness, thor vs reality tv, tony what the hell, what happens on glasbor iv stays on glasbor iv, worst proposal ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-11-23 14:25:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11404293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Tony is having the worst day he's had in a long, long,longtime. Naturally, this makes it the perfect time to ask his boyfriend (who might still be furious with him) a certain question...





	1. Tony and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Tony made his way to the bed, shedding clothes as he went, and crawled under the covers without bothering to open his eyes. A warm arm groped its way across his side and dragged him against Bucky’s body; Tony was pretty sure Bucky hadn’t even woken up. Which was fair; it had been nearly 2 AM by the time Tony had wrapped things up in the workshop and begun the trudge bedward. At least he’d managed to finish the specs for SI’s new personal armor line and gotten a prototype into the fabricator; Pepper was going to be at the Pentagon next week and needed to show some significant progress.

He’d just closed his eyes when Bucky started prodding at his shoulder insistently. Tony repressed a sigh. “What?”

JARVIS said, “I’m very sorry, sir, but Master Jaime requires your assistance.” When had the alarm started? Tony cracked one eye and waited for the clock to come into focus: 4:03. So he’d gotten a little less than two hours of sleep. Great.

Bucky stopped poking him, at least. “Let me know if you need me, too,” he told Tony, his words round and slurred with sleep.

Tony grunted. As a rule, Tony was the only one Jaime would respond to after one of his middle-of-the-night horror shows, but at least he’d stopped waking up screaming, which let Rikki and Sasha sleep through it.

Tony pulled on the first pair of pants that he could find and shuffled his way to the kids’ suite. Jaime was waiting for him in the living room, standing at painfully straight attention, eyes wide with terror. Tears were tracking slowly down his cheeks, and that was a worry, because neither Rikki nor Jaime allowed themselves the luxury of tears very often.

“Hey, kiddo, what’s up?” Sometimes just the sound of Tony’s voice and easy-going tone would snap Jaime out of whatever nightmare he was locked in. But though Jaime was tracking Tony, he didn’t relax at all. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Tony paced a little closer, until he was standing just out of arm’s reach, far enough not to be threatening and close enough to be ready to help. “At ease, soldier,” he tried, already knowing it wasn’t going to be one of those nights, either.

Jaime twitched, then straightened again, twice as stiff and straight.

Fine. “Compute: six thousand, five hundred eighty-four multiplied by four thousand, seven hundred ninety-one.”

“Thirty-one million, five hundred forty-three thousand, nine hundred forty-four, sir.”

Tony didn’t bother to check if that was correct; Jaime’s calculations were as reliable as JARVIS’. “Factor sixty-two thousand, two hundred and six.”

Jaime began to rattle off the numbers, watching warily as Tony took a step closer.

“What’s DUM-E’s lifting capacity given a six-foot lever?”

Jaime paused. “It... depends on the material strength of the lever, sir.” He held his breath, expecting punishment.

“Correct,” Tony said, and Jaime’s posture eased, just a bit. Tony wanted to slump in relief, himself. “And why is DUM-E not allowed to go near the fabrication units without adult supervision any more?”

“Because of the... the Play-Doh incident. Sir.” There was the faintest ghost of a smile in Jaime’s eyes.

“Yep. And why are you and Clint not allowed to hang out anymore?” That was a flat-out lie, an edict Tony had issued most of a week ago that everyone had promptly ignored.

Jaime’s gaze flicked up to meet Tony’s. Tony grinned, and Jaime grinned back, the last of the horrible tension bleeding out of his frame. “Because glitter is the herpes of the craft world, sir,” he said. He giggled, once, choked on his breath, and then burst into sobs.

Tony caught him and pulled him close. At least Jaime folded into it instead of remaining stiff and inconsolable. “Yeah, I know,” Tony sighed. “I’ve got you, kiddo, it’s okay.” He glanced at the clock: 4:42. Yeah, sleep wasn’t going to happen anymore tonight.

***

By the time they made it down to the common kitchen, breakfast was in full swing. Steve was feeding bits of banana to Sasha while Rikki scarfed down a super-soldier _teenager_ -sized portion of pancakes and bacon -- which was to say nearly half again as much as Steve’s and Bucky’s portions. Clint was still in the kitchen, continuously running the coffeemaker and keeping an eye on the bacon while Bruce made pancakes.

Bucky came in just as Tony was settling Jaime at the table. He made a spin around the table, ducking to kiss Sasha’s cheek and the top of Jaime’s head before pulling Tony into a hug and nuzzling at his throat. “Okay?” he asked, low.

“As much as we can be,” Tony said, tipping his head back for a proper kiss.

Bucky obliged, then let go of Tony to accept the coffee mug Clint was offering. “You wanna go back to bed for a couple hours? I can keep an eye on things.”

Jaime’s breath hitched. Tony looked down and Jaime grabbed at his hand, holding it desperately. “Don’t go,” he whispered.

Tony sighed as silently as he knew how. “I’ll be fine,” he told Bucky. Bucky gave him a commiserating look, and handed over the coffee.

“Okay, sprout, it looks like breakfast choices today are pancakes, bacon, and cereal, what’ll it be?” Tony tried for a more or less normal tone.

It didn’t really work; Jaime scrunched down in his chair, not relinquishing his hold on Tony’s hand. “Not hungry.”

“You must eat, Jaime!” Rikki said sharply. Tony winced. She meant well -- she loved Jaime and Sasha to distraction -- but Jamie didn’t respond very well to commands these days, and Rikki hadn’t adapted well to the change in her formerly biddable brother.

“No,” Jaime said sullenly.

“I know I’m ‘bout starving,” Bucky put in, trying to defuse the situation. “Why don’t I get a big plate and you can nibble off the edges? Other people’s food always tastes better, right?”

Jaime shook his head.

“Protein shake?” Steve offered. “Sometimes I just want to get something in me fast so I can get on with things.”

“No!” Jaime growled. “Just go away!”

“Jaime,” Bucky said sternly.

Jaime’s shoulders hunched. “Sorry,” he breathed, voice cracking around another spate of tears.

Bucky put his hand over his face, pressing against his eyes as if he was developing a severe headache.

Tony considered the table. They couldn’t force Jaime to eat; it would only make his food issues worse. But he needed _some_ thing. “Okay,” he said, “okay, how about a deal. You can skip breakfast if you drink something, because I’m pretty sure you need to re-hydrate more than you need food, anyway.” Jaime slanted a look up at him, and he tried a comforting smile. “You want milk or orange juice?” It wasn’t enough calories, given the Barnes kids’ metabolisms, but it would suffice for the next couple of hours, and once Jaime was down in the workshop, where it was quiet and calm, he might be nudged into eating a little more.

Jaime stared darkly at the cartons on the table, as if he were being forced to choose the poison for his execution. “...Juice,” he finally muttered.

“Vitamin C, excellent choice!” Tony snared a large glass off the counter and filled it. “There you go, drink up.”

He gulped it down and all but slammed the glass on the table. “Can I go now?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Yes, you may be excused.”

Jaime bolted. Tony dropped his head onto Bucky’s shoulder. “Workshop day,” he said. “Maybe that’ll give him some space to even out a little.”

“Yeah, that’s--”

Whatever Bucky was going to say was interrupted by Rikki’s fist smashing into the table. “Why is it always _you_?” she yelled at Tony. “I _raised_ him, and you just waltz in here and take over!”

“Okay, first of all, you’re the one who came here,” Tony said.

He didn’t get to his second point, because Rikki stood up fast enough to toss her chair back, and stormed out of the room. Tony was pretty sure she’d have screamed in frustration if she hadn’t known it would set off Sasha.

“Well, that was fun,” Clint said, delivering another coffee to Bucky and setting a fresh platter of bacon on the table. “Man, I don’t miss nineteen _at all_.”

“Think I should go after her?” Bucky asked.

“That depends,” Natasha said, coming into the kitchen with Zinobiya on her hip. “If she huffed off back to her room, leave her. If she’s pacing melodramatically in a semi-public room, she’s hoping for someone to come and find her.”

“Well, JARVIS?” Bucky said.

“Ms. Barnes appears to be leaving the building,” JARVIS said with his usual sense of delicate urgency.

Bucky jolted. “Fuck, that’s-- Yeah, okay, I’m going.” He scrambled for the door.

Tony pinched at the bridge of his nose. “It’s going to be one of _those_ days.”

***

Tony went down to the workshop as soon as breakfast was done; he needed to pull the sample material from the fabricator that he’d started the previous night and start testing so he could have at least some preliminary data for Pepper’s meeting next week. “Hey, J, let the sprout know that I’m about to get started, so he can come on down whenever he’s ready.”

“I will tell him,” JARVIS promised.

The new fabric was based on the special stuff he’d put together for the Avengers, though with some alterations to make it much less costly -- a necessity, when dealing with a military that needed to outfit hundreds of thousands of troops. Tony grabbed the half-dozen samples that the fabricators had produced and settled down at the testing station to put them through their paces.

Two hours later, he was feeling distinctly discouraged; he’d known the materials change would affect effectiveness, but his calculations had either been vastly incorrect or he’d fed the wrong specifications to the fabricators, because this was only barely better than the stuff currently in use -- certainly not enough of an improvement to tempt the Army or Marines to consider a field upgrade.

Either way, he was now at least a day behind schedule. He growled and pulled up the fabricator’s logs. Combing them for anomalous details was the sort of thing the kid liked doing; he could put Jaime on that while--

Where was Jaime, anyway? The kid _loved_ spending time in the workshop; would probably live there if he thought he could get away with it.

“JARVIS? Where’s Jaime?”

“Master Barnes is in the gym. He has elected to pursue physical training today, apparently.”

The hell? Tony tossed the offending scraps of armor onto the desk and left the workshop at a ground-eating stride, heading straight for the gym. Jaime was often out of sorts for a while after a bad dream, but this seemed... wrong.

Jaime was on the climbing wall, two-thirds of the way up. At least he’d put on the climbing harness this time and enlisted Clint to spot him. Even from the door, Tony could see that Jaime was dripping with sweat. Clint looked over and waved as Tony crossed the floor. “Hey, good timing. I don’t mind keeping an eye out, but Sam and I were going to practice fall-and-catch this afternoon, so I need to go pretty soon.”

Tony held out a hand for the belaying rope. “I got it,” he said. “I need a break from the ‘shop, anyway.” He wound the rope around his arm a couple of times so it couldn’t slip, then gave Clint a tight smile. “Thanks.”

“Hey, if anyone understands the occasional need to get up high and away from everything...” Clint shrugged and lightly punched Tony’s shoulder. “Good luck.”

Tony watched Clint leave and then tipped his head back to check on Jaime’s progress. He was nearly at the top. “Hey, doin’ great, kiddo!”

Jaime didn’t look down, or wave, or otherwise acknowledge Tony’s presence. He just kept climbing. When he got to the top of the wall, he pulled himself all the way to the top and stood on the narrow ledge, looking into the middle distance somewhere past Tony.

Tony made sure he had a good grip on the rope and was ready to run if needed. If Jaime unclipped the harness...

But he didn’t. He stood there for another minute -- possibly catching his breath; Tony could see his chest puffing like a bellows -- and then turned around and began to climb down.

“Don’t want to rappel down? It’s more fun,” Tony offered, but again, Jaime ignored him. Right, so, full-on sullen silence it was today, then. At least he wasn’t hiding again. There were way too many nooks and crannies in the Tower that were just the right size for a smallish kid that even Natasha couldn’t squeeze into. Tony sighed and just played out rope as needed. Jaime didn’t even pause to catch his breath at the bottom, just moved a few feet over and started going up again, with a different set of hand- and toe-holds.

Tony was trying to work out how best to suggest that they knock off and get some lunch when JARVIS said, “Excuse me, sir, but there’s been a minor incident.”

Even Jaime’s dogged stubbornness paused for that. “What’s up, J?” Tony asked.

“It seems that Mr. Wilson’s wings failed to fully deploy on a maneuver, causing both he and Mr. Barton to fall.”

Tony was on his feet before JARVIS even finished speaking. “Down, _now_ ,” he snapped, and Jaime kicked off the wall and let Tony lower him back to the floor, with rather more speed than usual. “How bad is it, JARVIS?”

“It appears that only minor injuries were sustained,” JARVIS said. “They are both in the medical wing with Dr. Banner.”

“On my way.” Jaime was agile enough to get out of the climbing harness himself. Tony ran for medical.

“What happened?” he demanded before he’d even pushed all the way through the door into the examining room. Sam was sitting on the exam table, Bruce prodding at his ankle, and Clint was leaning against the wall, one arm cradled in the other. All three looked up at Tony’s entrance.

“Don’t know,” Sam said. “We were onto the third run of that particular angle, and the right secondary made this sort of grinding noise and then got stuck. We weren’t high enough to use ‘chutes, so it was basically a tuck-and-roll. Guess we need a little more practice with those; pretty sure I sprained my ankle.”

“Yep, looks sprained to me, too,” Bruce concurred. “I’m going to wrap it and give you an ice pack; you know the drill. If it gets worse...”

“I’ll give you a ring,” Sam promised.

Tony frowned at the pack where it laid beside Sam. “Can I?” He gestured at it.

“Be my guest,” Sam said. “You were gonna be my next stop anyway.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll figure out what went wrong and fix it up,” he promised. He scooped up the rig and turned an eye on Clint. “You all right?”

“It’s not broken,” Clint said, poking gingerly at his arm. “That’s about all I can say. Hurts like all fuck, though.”

“Torn ligament,” Sam said, “if I had to guess.”

Clint made a face. “Peachy.”

***

Tony had been ready to chalk up Sam’s malfunctioning wing under the category of _It’s Been a Bad Day Anyway and Shit Happens_ , but this... was not random shit happening.

This was the fault of a worn part, a _badly_ worn part. The sort of worn part that should have been caught in one of Tony’s periodic maintenance checks of the equipment, but obviously had been missed. A pin had snapped, the pieces it was holding together had slid apart, and-- yeah.

Which meant that this -- Sam’s sprained ankle and Clint’s torn elbow ligament and their various minor-but-dangerous bruises and scrapes were _Tony’s fucking fault_.

Tony wanted to sweep everything off the workbench, just for that momentary satisfaction of the destruction, the crash of noise that would fit like a key up against the jagged shards of his anger and guilt. He wanted to scream in frustration, to throw something, hit something, to _break and destroy_ because at least if it was willful he could properly _own_ it.

Even more than he wanted to throw an adult-sized tantrum, he wanted a fucking _drink_.

He leaned both hands against the workbench and let his head drop down between his shoulders, drawing measured breaths. _Almost over_ , he promised himself. It was nearly dinnertime; if he could just make it through dinner, he’d go to bed early. Maybe talk Bucky into coming with him, spend an hour or so working out the day’s frustration and pain so he could slide into sleep feeling exhausted and loved.

Yeah, that... That would be good. Bucky was pretty much always happy to wear Tony out, and Tony desperately needed something to take him out of his head.

Okay. Yes. He drew another slow breath, held it until his lungs ached, and then let it out as slowly as he could. Fix the wing. Do another good scan to make sure nothing _else_ had been missed, and then go upstairs for dinner.

Tony picked up his screwdriver and started disassembling the malfunctioning pieces.

“Sir, if I may interrupt--”

“Oh, for fucksake, what _now_?”

“I’m afraid I’ve become aware of an... incident in the city.”

Tony closed his eyes and counted to ten. “Please tell me there’s invading aliens or something I am allowed to repulsor in the face.”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

***

_Natasha_

The phone rang; not a number she recognized, but it was her backup phone, (not the blackops phone, and not her burner phone, and not the extra backup phone, either) and the handful of people who actually had that number were mostly ones who were in the building and they knew better than to use it unless it was an emergency. She paid extra to actually get on the no-call list and stay there, so unless it was a wrong number, it was probably important.

“Yes?”

“<Tash, I need a favor,>” came a familiar voice, his tone rising and falling as the choppy sound of perfectly accented Muscovite rang in her ear.

“<Why do I think I’m not going to like this favor?>”

“<I need bail.>”

“<Yasha.>”

“<So does Rishka.>”

“<Do I even want to know what happened?>” Natasha was already moving, checking her supply of ready cash, her various identifications and paperwork.

“<Domestic troubles,>” Yasha said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “<And… it would be best if Zhelezoska did not find out about this right away.>”

“<I need more information.>”

“<Bail set at ten grand for me. Rishka’s bail is seventy-five thousand.>”

“<What the hell did she do?>”

“<Stabbed me.>” Yasha had a definite tone of _I don’t want to talk about it_ going on there.

Natasha pushed her tongue around in her mouth, considering that. Yasha was right, Tony would not be forgiving. At the same time, if Yasha thought Tony wasn’t going to find out, he was straight up drinking stupid.

“<And you?>” She texted Bruce from her other phone. _Can you come watch Zoya for a bit, I have to go out._

The sound of Yasha’s teeth grinding together made Natasha’s jaw ache in sympathy. “<Punched her in the face. Broke her nose. We’re both fine, thanks for asking.>”

“<I’ll come get you.>”

“<I owe you one.>”

“<You owe me eighty-five thousand, as a point of fact.”> She smiled, pecked Bruce on the cheek as he walked in the door. <”And babysitting.”> Bruce didn’t ask questions; whenever she had that particular phone out, he knew questions were unwelcome.

***

_Tony_

He finished the wings. Carefully. With attention to detail. Found a couple of gears that were beginning to look a bit dinged, and replaced them, even though they were going to be good for months yet. Polished everything up.

Washed his hands and face, and strolled casually up to the common floor in good time for dinner. Jaime was already at the table; he gave Tony a wan smile that meant he was pulling out of his funk. That was good; it was a worry off Tony’s shoulders.

Tony accepted a glass of tea from Clint, but set it down when the elevator opened to release Sam, limping along on crutches. Tony helped Sam get seated and spoke to him briefly about the wings and the repairs. He couldn’t stop watching everyone else, though, and wondering just who Bucky had called to bail them out, instead of him.

Steve came in with Sasha on one hip and his arm around Jessica’s shoulders, all smiles and good-natured ribbing.

Steve was a terrible liar. So it wasn’t Steve. Jessica could’ve sustained the lie, but she and Bucky weren’t quite that close. Also, she didn’t have that kind of money, and while Steve _did_ , she’d have had to tell him what it was for. So: not Jones.

Could’ve been Clint, maybe. Clint ought to have been perpetually broke, except that whenever he needed money, he somehow had it. And his injury wouldn’t have slowed him down, like Sam’s would. Could’ve been Clint.

Bruce was carrying Zoya when he came in, Natasha on his heels. Wasn’t Bruce, but it definitely could’ve been Natasha. She and Bucky were close, and she didn’t just _keep_ secrets, she _hoarded_ them.

Then Rikki came in and Tony felt his press smile fall into place. Not that she noticed; her hair was falling loose over her face and she was playing the part of the moody teen at full volume. The hair wasn’t enough to hide her black eye, though.

“Oh, ow,” Steve said when he saw it. “What happened?”

She started to roll her eyes, then winced when that hurt, and then hissed when _that_ hurt. “Zigged when I should’ve zagged,” she said. “It’s fine, be gone by bedtime.” She flopped into her usual chair and didn’t look at Tony, though that alone wasn’t telling, since she avoided looking his way most of the time anyway.

Then Bucky came in, walking slower and more stiffly than usual. He raised a quick glance at the table and gave a very significant look at Rikki. She huffed and sighed and squirmed in her seat for a full minute under that stare, then muttered, so quietly that if Tony hadn’t been paying very close attention, he might have missed it entirely, “Sorry, Tony. I shouldn’t have yelled at you this morning.” If she were younger, Tony might have expected her to disappear under the table to sulk. As it was, she slumped as far down as the chair would allow and still be technically at the table.

“Very heartfelt, I’m sure,” Tony said. “I can tell the two of you had some lovely bonding time today.”

Rikki glanced at him, her stormcloud eyes full of sudden tears. “You don’t have to be that way about it. Father said… because I yelled at you in public, I had to make the apology the same way. But.” She was flushed, angry, upset, embarrassed. “I didn’t handle my anger well. I’m _sorry_. Okay?”

“All right,” Tony said easily. A fresh flare of anger lit under his skin and made the room seem brighter than before. “We’ll just let bygones be bygones, shall we? Let’s talk about something else. Did anyone do anything fun and interesting today? Learn anything new?”

Clint cocked his head at Tony’s tone, hearing the warning bells there that apparently no one else did. Bucky was focused on easing himself into a chair, jaw tight as he bent in the middle. Rikki watched her father, then shunted her eyes to the side, looking exceptionally guilty. She got to her feet again, poured Bucky a drink and brought it to him without asking, attentive and dutiful in a way she never, _ever_ was.

“No? No one? Well, I’ll go first, maybe that will warm the rest of you up a little. Today, _I_ learned what New York sets as bail for assault--” He flashed Bucky a wide, not-at-all pleased smile. “-- _and_ assault with a deadly weapon!” He turned his rictus grin on Rikki. “Isn’t that fascinating?”

Bucky directed his disgusted stare in the proper direction, at least, rolling his eyes at the nearest pinhole camera. “Thanks awfully,” he muttered.

“Don’t blame JARVIS,” Tony snapped, all pretense of civility gone. “You think I wouldn’t have noticed the _hole in your side_ on my own? You’re still wincing around it _four hours later_. You think I can’t do the math on your healing rate and work out how bad it was?”

Jessica Jones dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, fuck me running,” she muttered. “This is going to get ugly.”

“Tony, come on,” Bucky said, “can we just… not do this? I wasn’t going to not tell you, jus’ didn’t want to do it with blood still on our hands, okay?” He flicked a glance at his daughter, who resolutely picked up a dinner roll and shoved the entire thing in her mouth.

Jaime turned preternaturally calm eyes on his sister. “What did you do?”

“Not do this? _Not do this?_ I find out you’ve been brawling in the streets and arrested, and I’m not even the one you called to bail you out, which suggests to me that you _were_ planning not to tell me. But you want to _not do this_?”

Bruce took a deep breath and very slowly started backing out of the kitchen, handing his daughter off to Clint. “Let’s go now, Uncle Clint.” And then he tented his fingers on Natasha’s back. “Not you. You get to stay.”

“Traitor,” Natasha muttered.

“Yeah, that’s... That’s a good idea,” Jessica said. She tugged at Steve’s arm. “Come on, cowboy, let’s get firebaby out of the blast radius before it gets too combustible.”

Steve shook her off. “How bad are you hurt, Buck?”

Bucky gritted his teeth, glowering at the room indiscriminately. “Bad enough,” he admitted. “Hit the bone. It’ll be fine in a few days.”

Jaime stood up, fists clenched at his sides, shaking all over. “You stabbed him? You _stabbed_ our father? You… you…”

Sasha started to cry, and Steve was jolted out of his concern for Bucky to lift the boy up from his booster chair. “Okay, then. Decombusting. We’ll talk later.” And they fled to the elevator, Sasha’s wails trailing up behind them like a kite.

Tony gave Sam a look. “You want to head for the hills, too, now’s your window.”

Sam leaned back in his chair and crossed his sprained ankle over his good one. “Nah, I’m not missin’ this.”

“Yeah, I wanted to _not do this_ ,” Bucky snarled. He made a wide, sweeping gesture, indicating his family. “As the person who _got stabbed_ , I should think my wishes have some weight.”

“As the person who would’ve been left to mourn if she’d killed you, I beg to differ,” Tony growled.

Jaime glanced at his father, that far-off computing look dropping over him for a moment, then back at his sister. “You meant to,” he said, voice flat. “You went for the kill. You know what sort of damage organ failure can do. _Why_? Why would you do that?”

“She didn’t,” Bucky said, sighing. “She pulled it at the last second.”

“Oh, _that’s_ comforting,” Tony said snidely. He pointed at Natasha. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, either. _What the hell_ , Romanov? You were, what, practicing on me? Trying to see if you could still pull the old wool over my eyes?”

Natasha didn’t flinch or wince or even look particularly unhappy. “He’s my friend,” she said, simply. “He asked for a favor, so I granted it to him. As I would do for anyone else in this building.”

“I’m not sure you get off with ‘favor for a friend’ when that favor involves lying to another friend,” Tony said.

“I _told_ him you would know,” she sighed. “And I didn’t lie to you. I haven’t seen you. And we all know how you get when he’s hurt; the least I could do was give him time before speaking with you.”

“I hate you!” Jaime shouted, throwing his glass at his sister with frightening accuracy. Rikki didn’t even dodge or block, she just let the glass hit her in the chin, spilling apple juice down her front. She folded her arms on the table, put her head down and started to cry. Jaime stared at her for a long moment, then took up refuge behind Tony’s chair, balling his fist up in the back of Tony’s shirt.

Tony was shaking; he couldn’t even think straight. “I’m so very sorry,” he said, biting off each word, “to have _smothered_ you with my concern.” He stood up carefully. “Since it obviously isn’t wanted, I’m going back to work, which is where you obviously were hoping I would stay for the next three days while you finished healing.”

“Tony,” Bucky said, holding out one hand. “C’mon, babe, I… you’re not the only one who’s upset here. I know, I know you don’t like it when I’m hurt -- fuck that noise, I don’t like being hurt, but… like Rishka and I had… she didn’t mean it. And I didn’t want you to be angry with her, okay?”

“Then who do you suggest I be angry with?” Tony demanded, “because I’m sure as fuck angry at _someone_.” He swept the room with his gaze -- Rikki, still sobbing; Natasha, maddeningly calm; Bucky, pleading. He landed on Sam, sitting half-forgotten in the corner, arms folded and expression neutral. “I’m leaving,” he told Sam, carefully deliberate, “before I say something I really regret.”

Sam nodded slowly. “Might be a good idea,” he said.

Jaime looked up at him, unclenching Tony’s shirt. “Do… you need help in the shop?”

God help him, but Rikki was going to hate him even more for that. Part of Tony, basking in the heat of his anger, was glad for it. “Sure, you come on down, I’m sure I can find something for you.”

“Okay,” Jaime said. He turned to the table, looking over the vast heaps of food that were going untouched. “I’ll bring us some dinner, okay, Tony?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just got out some of the tupperware containers and started to pack up two plates, hands quick and easy.

Rikki stared at Jaime for a handful of seconds in shocked disbelief, then flung her chair back and threw herself into Bucky’s arms, sobbing hysterically.

“Ow,” Bucky said. “Careful.” He put his arms around her, watching Tony over the top of her head with calm, cold eyes.

 _Fuck you, anyway_ , Tony tried to send telepathically. How could Bucky _comfort her_ when she had _fucking stabbed him_?

Jaime was moving fast, obviously knowing what food Tony was likely to eat, and deliberately balancing his own plate in the manner that both his sister and father always encouraged him to do and that he rarely did. Oh, yeah, Jaime was learning spite from a _master_.

Not that Tony expected to be able to eat, but he waited anyway, reflecting Bucky’s angry stare with equal animosity. He wasn’t even sure why he was waiting, except that he couldn’t leave Jaime alone with this level of hostility in the air. Finally, Jaime came toward him with the packed containers. “Right, let’s go get to work.”

***

Eight minutes to midnight.

Tony leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes. Jaime had long since curled up on the couch and fallen asleep, after digging out the problem with the armor specs for SI (neither Tony’s calculations nor a bad entry in the fabricator, but the need for an extra hardening step in the process; Tony had a lot of confidence about the samples currently processing).

Tony hadn’t done anything useful for at least an hour. Probably longer, if he were being honest with himself.

It was usually around 10:30 or 11 when Bucky came in to try to cajole Tony into bed (more often than not successfully). Even when Tony had to stay and catch up on work, he looked forward to that visit.

Bucky hadn’t come down tonight. For obvious reasons, but in the hours of quiet work, Tony’s anger had bled out into an ache of remorse and shame. Jaime had been earnest, helpful, chatty, all the things that Tony usually had to draw out of him with skill and subtlety, continually reaching up from his work to pat Tony’s arm or hand, smiling when they were both hands full. But he’d also been short on sleep, so he’d left Tony to brood while he got some rest. The silence was… loud. Especially since JARVIS had been rather pointedly silent as well.

Tony sighed and closed his workstation with a wave of the hand, and spread a blanket over Jaime. JARVIS would keep an eye on the kid.

In the meantime... Tony got into the elevator and eyed the number bank wearily. “Give us forty-two, J.” The alacrity with which the doors closed and the car began to move told Tony everything he needed to know about _that_ decision.

Still, his steps slowed as he made his way down the hall toward Bucky’s favorite hiding spot. This wasn’t their first fight, by a long shot, but it was the first time they’d gotten the kids involved. Which was pretty much a dick move on Tony’s part.

The door to the little dorm-style apartment was, as always, standing open. Tony stopped in the doorway. “Hey.”

Bucky waved him in. “Hey.” He was laying, shirtless, on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. The bandages around his waist hadn’t bled through, yet, but it was hard to tell how fresh they were. “I’d get up, but…” He trailed off, not looking at Tony.

Tony swallowed back the wave of panic that swamped him every time he saw Bucky injured. “No, don’t... don’t make it worse.” He took a couple of steps into the room. “I, uh, I wanted to-- _OW_.” He looked down at his foot, suddenly in pain.

DOB-E put on a sudden burst of speed and rolled over Tony’s foot _again_.

“Ow,” Tony repeated. “Okay, I get it, message received. Jesus.”

DOB-E made a quiet revving sound, which Tony figured was the closest it could get to a threat.

“Dobs, stop it,” Bucky said, sighing. “It’s fine, okay. Just… stop.” He dropped his metal arm over his eyes, looking utterly miserable.

“It’s okay,” Tony told the housebot. “I came to apologize, promise.” He stepped carefully past the bot, to nearly within arm’s reach of Bucky. “I overreacted. I’m sorry.”

“No, you didn’t,” Bucky said. “I’d be _furious_ if something like this happened to you. You’re right to be upset. And I should have come to you first.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Tony admitted. “But ambushing you at dinner was... not the best idea.”

“Coulda gone smoother,” Bucky agreed. “I just needed time to work it out. There ain’t no playbook that has a page in it for how to tell your lover that you got stabbed by your own kid. Rishka’s sorry, Tony, she really is. We had an actual moment. If this is what it cost, I’ll pay it, but, it’s not the answer I know you were hoping for.”

“Mostly what I was hoping for was that you’d come to bed,” Tony said. “And for today to be fucking _done_ already, because it has _sucked_.”

“Big time,” Bucky said. He pressed his hand to his wound and rocked himself up, slowly. He got to his feet and put a hand out to steady himself, _knowing_ , trusting, that Tony would get under him for support.

Which he did, of course. “Come on, I’ve got you,” he said, sliding under Bucky’s arm and teasing lightly, “You supersoldiers and your bizarre bonding rituals, I swear.”

“It’s a bad habit,” Bucky admitted. He rested his head on Tony’s shoulder for a long moment, then marshalled his strength for the walk to the elevator. “I’m gettin’ too old for this shit.”

Tony snorted even as he wrapped an arm around Bucky’s waist. “I recommend starting with: stop getting stabbed for recreational purposes.”

“Ow, no, don’t make me laugh, Tony, ow. _Ow_.” Bucky whined, chuckling painfully.

“Vengeance is mine,” Tony said drily. It was the first time all day that Tony had felt entirely calm and centered and that things were okay. He closed his eyes as they waited for the elevator, just breathing in Bucky’s nearness. “Today has sucked,” he said finally.

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, his arm tightening on Tony’s shoulder. “C’mon, doll, let’s get some rest, and hopefully tomorrow will be better.”

Tony led him up to their bedroom. He undressed mechanically, too worn down for even his usual flirting. He crawled under the covers and couldn’t hold back the sigh of relief when Bucky pulled him into the middle of the bed, gingerly curling into a spoon against Tony’s back and nuzzling at his hair. “I really am sorry,” he said again.

“I know,” Bucky rumbled. “It’s okay, baby. We’re okay.”

Tony felt dizzy for a moment, even lying down, overcome with gratitude and love. “Let’s get married,” he said.

Bucky jerked and half-sat to look at Tony’s face. “What?”

Tony rolled onto his back. “Let’s get married,” he repeated.

“What even the fuck, Tony.”

Tony lifted a hand to brush Bucky’s hair back, and Bucky didn’t draw away from the touch, like he would if he were angry. “Because if we can get through shit like today and still want to end the night in the same bed, I think we deserve to make it official,” Tony said.

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him.

“Also, legal benefits,” Tony said reasonably. “Lots easier for us to take care of the kids if something happens to one of us, if it’s all formalized and everything.”

“Legal benefits,” Bucky repeated slowly.

“Sure. And not just for the kids, but all kinds of protections for us, too. And tax breaks, but that’s hardly the most compelling--”

“Tony, this is by far the worst proposal I’ve ever heard of in my _entire life_ ,” Bucky said. “Where’s the romance, the tenderness, the professions of devotion? Did you put any thought into this _at all_? Where’s the-- do you even have a _ring_?”

“Not _on_ me, no.”

“So you do have one?”

“Yes?” Tony tried.

Bucky looked unimpressed. “Where is it?”

“At... the jeweler’s.” That was _technically_ true.

Bucky snorted. “Sounds to me like Tony-code for ‘I’ll buy it first thing tomorrow.’”

Damn, he’d figured it out. “It’s not like I haven’t thought about it at all,” Tony protested. “I’ve always known that this was it, that you’re the one for me. I just hadn’t--”

“Yes.”

“What?” It was hard to get his brain to slow down enough to change directions. “You mean...”

“I mean yes. I accept.” Bucky was looking down at him with that smile, that “you’re an idiot but you’re _my_ idiot” smile that always made Tony feel just a little weak in the knees. Good thing he was already lying down.

“Yeah?” he breathed, reaching up to curl his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He kissed Tony then, slow and sweet and trembling with barely-checked emotion. “Let’s get married.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a little rough, as its title may have suggested, but push through it; we promise the rest of the fic is all feels and fluff and silliness and smut!


	2. Say Yes to the Dress

_Rikki_

Talking to Father often had the side-effect of making her feel smaller. She’d always known, been told her whole life, that she wasn’t up to the standard he set. That her unknown and (probably) unenhanced mother had diluted her blood and made her weaker, slower, less impressive. That she could never, _ever_ live up to expectations.

When she sat down and thought the whole thing through, she knew he wasn’t doing it to her on purpose. Father had been nothing but supportive since she’d arrived, more than she could have ever expected. More than she’d been taught, over and over, that she deserved.

She hated him for it, sometimes. His love, his acceptance, everything that he gave her seemed to conspire against her to make her feel worse. She sometimes felt that he’d be that way no matter how she was, how undeserving, that he had some innate human weakness that Hydra had wanted her to exploit: his love for her could be his downfall.

She thought she’d scraped the bottom of that barrel, that she’d found the very depths of it, the gunk and rot and stale and dying matter that settled to the very bottom. She’d been wrong.

When Father had grabbed her arm not five miles from the Tower and said, “I’m disappointed in your behavior,” she’d lost it. Utterly and completely lost it.

Absorbed in her thoughts, she almost walked into the door; her feet moved faster than she expected and she was already outside Tony’s workshop. She couldn’t see through the wall anymore. It had been reinforced again and frosted to prevent anyone (her) from aiming specifically at anyone within.

Rikki sighed. She didn’t have to do this. No one was making her.

Except Father had dropped into their suite that morning, still sore and limping from his wound -- the one _she’d_ caused -- to let them know that, as of midnight, he and Tony were engaged to be married. She had pushed aside the terrible, terrible churning in her gut and merely nodded. Jaime, of course, had been beside himself with glee. That hurt even more, since her brother, her only friend, her companion since she was a girl, was still not speaking to her.

She knocked on the door.

The door slid open. Tony was sitting at a bank of holographic screens, manipulating a diagram of some sort. He glanced over at her, then returned his attention to the glowing image. “Jaime’s not down here,” he said. “Sorry.”

“I know,” she said. Rikki took several steps into the workshop; she’d seldom had reason to come here, and the brilliant glitter of lights and spare parts on various tabletops were still strangely dazzling, like walking into a modern dragon’s cave. She stopped an even ten paces from Tony’s workstation, putting her hands behind her back and standing at parade rest, eyes straight ahead. “Sir.”

He looked at her again, longer this time, an appraising look that was eerily similar to Jaime’s, and yet utterly different. Foreign. He dropped his hands from the screens to cross his arms over his chest, and spun the chair to face her.

Rikki struggled to maintain her pose; his gaze made her want to snap all the way to attention, to lower her eyes to the floor. She didn’t, but it was harder than she would have thought. He wasn’t her handler, but this was a man who knew command, intimately, and the soldier inside her responded to it.

“That’s quite the about-face,” he said mildly. His bright eyes were darting minutely, an outward sign of the calculations in his mind. “What’s up?”

Rikki knew, having witnessed it when Jaime fell back into compliance mode, that little bothered Tony more than when they slipped into that speech, putting the individual self aside and operating entirely as a soldier and not a person. However comforting it would be for her to retreat into that simpler frame of mind, it would be cheating to sway his sympathies by using the emotions her father and her brother stirred in him

“I came to make peace,” she said, as simply as she knew how. “Father tells me that you are… entering into a more permanent arrangement. The family unit will suffer, under the current turmoil.”

Tony smiled, sardonic. “I don’t know, it’s practically a tradition for kids to hate the new stepparent.”

“Tradition is irrelevant,” Rikki said. “This family unit had never been fractured until we came here. Upon consideration, this soldier has come to the conclusion that she is responsible for the fracture and as such, it is her duty to repair it.” _Damn it._ She’d slipped. It was so much easier to put herself in the third person, to divorce what needed to be done from how she felt about it, from her own wants and wishes. To put the needs of the unit ahead of her own.

“That’s... very mature of you,” Tony said. “You know I didn’t really want to fight you in the first place, right?”

Rikki allowed herself the veriest ghost of a smile. “You did a remarkably good job of it, for something you undertook reluctantly.”

His smile turned sharp. “Reluctant or not, I fight to win, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.”

“Yes, sir,” Rikki said. “Nothing has been as expected, since we came here. Everything I thought I knew--” She gestured, spreading her hands like dust scattering to the winds. “I was too busy raging at what I thought I’d lost to see what was actually here. I apologize.”

She’d daydreamed about her life with the Winter Soldier for so long that her expectations had been ridiculous. She’d put him on a pedestal, expecting him to be some paragon of righteous war without considering -- at all -- that he was just as much a mere mortal as she was. She’d never considered that he might feel, or _what_ he might feel.

She had expected to be granted Father’s full attention, for him to train her and shape her into the same sort of mighty weapon that he was. She’d never even contemplated the idea that he might _love_. That she and Jaime and Sasha might have some sort of competition for his attention, for his devotion. She hadn’t expected… She flicked her eyes, catching only the briefest of looks. She hadn’t expected Tony.

She couldn’t quite repress a rueful chuckle at that. Had anyone in the history of that man’s life ever _expected_ Tony?

She hadn’t realized the truth, not really, until she did the full combat-playback. Her trainers had drilled that habit into her, so that she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Her mind was slower than Jaime’s; she couldn’t do pattern analysis as quick, but she was thorough. The police had arrived on the spot and her father, gritting his teeth, his hand pressed to his side to staunch the bleeding, had given her an order, the first one he’d ever issued. _Stand down. Soldiers do not harm law enforcement._

In the ride to the jail, hands cuffed painfully behind her back, her nose dripping blood gently on her shirt, her father out of sight (but not out of hearing, attempting to convince medical attendants that he was better off if they just him alone) she’d had time to think. To review.

She hadn’t known, at the time, why she had turned her strike at the last second. She’d certainly meant to kill her father. To prove, once and all, that she was worthy of taking his place, perhaps. He had refused to attack; he had only defended, twisting and dodging, had attempted to capture her multiple times. It had been _infuriating_ , to be schooled as if she were a child, unable to land a blow. She had grown reckless, had let her anger drive her. She would _force him_ to treat her as a worthy adversary. She had executed a Pyrrhic maneuver -- an all-or-nothing attack that had left her death as the only way he could prevent his own. And even if he had killed her in that moment, her blade would have landed home.

And he had _dropped his hands_.

She’d seen it in his eyes; Father had chosen to die, rather than kill her. She should not have been able to stop the maneuver once she had started it. The conclusion had been foregone. But she had. She had twisted, at the last possible moment. The wound had been ugly, ragged and deep and painful, but she had missed everything vital.

He’d been willing, in that moment, to give _everything_ over to her. His name and his very life’s blood.

She stared at her hands; even washed clean, she felt that they were forever stained by what she’d nearly done.

How could she do any less than he had done? How could she give any less than he had?

Rikki straightened even more and met Tony’s gaze. “I have acted in a manner unworthy of my father. I… wish to make amends.”

“I see.” He didn’t say any more for a moment, watching her in that unnerving way of his. “He defended you to me, you know.”

She didn’t allow herself to cringe. “I know. After… what happened --” Her voice dropped, and she had to force herself to speak. “--I cannot imagine he would do less.”

“He also wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened, which suggests that whatever it was, it was pretty dire.”

“Yes, sir,” Rikki said.

“So I have to say, I’m curious what sort of amends you think will do the trick, because up until about three minutes ago, I was under the very strong impression that I was the enemy, and the best we could expect from you, going forward, was a Cold-War-esque standoff sort of peace treaty.”

“Nothing,” she said, blinking furiously. “I can do _nothing_ that will erase my shame for how I have acted. For what I have done, what I _almost did_. But I must learn to bend, or surely, here, I will break. What I have done is unforgivable, and I do not expect forgiveness. I don’t even know if I could accept it, if offered. The debt on my side, sir, it’s insurmountable.” Rikki took a deep breath. “I can only move forward. I should… be honored if you would allow me a small role in the ceremony in which you join our family. Symbolism is very powerful. I should like to… if you would permit me. To give Father away.”

Tony looked surprised at that, and then his eyes narrowed in thought. “It’s a bit backwards, but I suppose you _are_ the oldest family he’s got. You’ll have to talk to him, see if he’s agreeable, of course. Do you really think you can do it?” His gaze was steady and unblinking. “Can you, however symbolically, give him to me?”

“I can, sir. Without reservation. _He_ believes you are worthy. He has chosen _you_. Jaime believes you are worthy. I feel quite certain at this point that if _Sasha_ was conversational, he would also be firmly on your side. I… I cannot stand against them all and I will not. Sir, you are welcome… to join our family. I will be honored for you to do so.”

She braced herself for mockery, for scorn -- it was Tony’s first line of defense, after all -- but he just looked slightly amused. “Okay,” he said after a long moment. “I don’t know what’s turned you around after months of fighting a one-woman war, but I’ll take it. Make up with Jaime, and see what Bucky has to say, but I’m in.”

‘Yes, sir,” she said. She stared down at her hands again. Jaime… Jaime was not going to be understanding.

“And for god’s sake, knock it off with the ‘sir’, already. I’m not a soldier, I’m not your boss, and I’m not part of your command structure.”

Rikki sighed. “Yes, Tony. I’ll… do that.”

Tony grinned. “Buyer’s remorse,” he said. “It happens a lot with me. You’ll get used to it.”

“<Somehow, I doubt that,>” she muttered. It wasn’t quite a salute, she managed to not do that, but she gave him a rough nod, turned, and… “I’ll just see myself out. Thank you.”

“Anytime, kid.”

***

_Bucky_

“You know,” Bucky said as Steve entered the gym, sweat towel hanging over his shoulder, “you’re really not required to go for a marathon jog every single day. Promise, the serum will keep you in shape.”

He pushed up, slow, from the bench. God, his side ached. The tissue was starting the deep knit, and it itched bad enough that it was all he could do not to pound on the wound with his fist to make it stop. (It wouldn’t, which is why he didn’t. He’d succumbed to that temptation a few times and all it ever did was slow the process down.) At least with Steve, he didn’t have to put on as much of a brave face. Tony was still getting all… fussy whenever Bucky winced or groaned.

“Jess says the same thing,” Steve pointed out. “And Sam. And Clint. Does it never occur to anyone around here that maybe I just like to run?”

Bucky stared at him. “No?”

“Well, I do,” Steve said. “Every time I get out there and I can run, it fixes the part of me that used to watch everyone else run when we were kids and know that I couldn’t. I didn’t run from bullies when I was a kid because it wasn’t an option. Might as well make them do the hurtin’ since I was gonna get hurt anyway.”

Bucky just looked at him. “Don’t bullshit me, Rogers. If runnin’ away was something you would have done, you mighta started with not openin’ your idiot mouth.”

Steve just chuckled, instead of getting mad. “Probably true, Buck. Probably true.”

“No probably about it, punk,” Bucky said. He jerked his chin toward the shower areas. “Come sit in the sauna with me? Got somethin’ to tell you an’ Tony’s getting on my case about this.” He gestured to his side. “Little steam and some rest oughta help it, a lot.”

“She was really pissed with you,” Steve observed. He put a hand under Bucky’s elbow and let him lean heavily. Bucky wanted to protest; he fucking hated being coddled, but damn it all, it did hurt, and he was feeling both tired and old today.

“You don’t even know the half of it, pal,” Bucky said.

He stripped out of his clothes, slowly. Button-down top because he couldn’t raise his goddamn arm over his head, and sweatpants, which made for an ugly combination but kept the pain from being too bad. He ignored the low whistle when Steve looked over and saw the left side of him. Even a day later, his ribs and hip looked like a mountain sunrise, brilliant red and purple.

Bucky wrapped a towel around his hips and followed Steve into the steam-room. If Bucky ever needed any reasons other than Tony to love the Tower, the sauna would have ranked right up there on his top ten. The wooden benches were sanded silk-soft and had easy reclined backs covered with terry-cloth padding. The steam issued up from the floor in an adjustable variety of temperatures and densities. Off to the left of the room was a jetted hot tub and on the right was a clear, cold rinsing pool.

Tony had admitted to using a setup like this, back in the day, to clear off the worst of his hangovers. Bucky could believe it; it was brutal but effective.

Bucky eased himself onto one of the benches, tipping his head back and letting the steam soothe aching muscles.

“So, why did she stab you?” Steve asked, hesitantly.

Steve was the first person to ask, which shouldn’t have surprised Bucky at all, except it did. Bucky’d been trying to wrap his head around the answer all night, when he wasn’t trying to wrap his head around the _other_ answer he’d given. He loved Tony, he’d known that for just about ever, and he wanted this, so bad he could almost taste it, but really, would it have killed the man to give him some time to recover from one emotional shock before giving Bucky another one?

“Hydra,” Bucky said, “but not in the way you think. She wasn’t triggered, it wasn’t… that sort of conditioning. I think she was, eventually, supposed to be another safety-valve for me. Like if wipin’ me and stuffin’ me into cryo wasn’t bad enough, they needed someone who could take me out. Someone who could put me down like a dog.”

“Jesus,” Steve said, low and fervent. “Bitch of a thing to do to your own kid.”

Bucky waved a hand around, swirling the steam. “They used the idea of me as a whip on her, let her think she could never be good enough, that any contest between us would be her death. I lost my temper with her yesterday. Accidentally sort of poked that wound, told her I was disappointed in her. She heard _not worthy_ and _not capable_ and she had to prove me wrong. Almost did, too.”

Steve just looked at him. Didn’t have to say anything; they’d been like that before, in the war, finishing each other’s thoughts, hearing those words that went unsaid.

“Took a page out of your book, pal,” Bucky said, answering the question that Steve hadn’t asked. “Stopped fighting. Let her win.”

“She could have killed you.”

_And I could have killed you._ He didn’t have to say that, either. They both knew it was true. Steve totally would have let it happen; damn idiot had been walking around with a deathwish since 1945 and anyone who didn’t know that was willfully blind.

Bucky leaned over and checked the Sharpie marks he’d drawn up his ribs, saw the bruising had faded down two marks. That was good. Another day or so and the worst of it would be gone.

They soaked up more steam, and Steve went off to the rinse pool, which Bucky didn’t dare. No matter how good it would feel, the sudden temperature change would make his muscles cramp and then he’d be in trouble as everything in his side ripped and tore again. He splashed off in one of the showers instead, sluicing off the sweat and condensation.

“So,” he said, pulling his shirt back on over warmed and healing skin. “You’re gonna stand up with me, right?”

Steve stopped toweling his hair. “For what? Character witness for when you go to court for being half-murdered by your own kid?”

“No, idiot,” Bucky said, snapping his towel in Steve’s direction. Steve yelped as the end of the towel left a red welt on his thigh that faded quickly. He looked like he wanted to snap Bucky back, but didn’t quite dare. Ha. It would have been a good opportunity, but Bucky was too damn tired to chase him around. “Best man spot’s still empty in the wedding party, thought you might want to give one of those earnest speeches of yours, or something.”

Steve stared. “What?”

“I’m getting married,” Bucky said. “What, you think I’d ask someone else to stand up with me?”

Steve sat down, hard. “When… when did this happen?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Sorta been happening for a while now,” he pointed out. “Ain’t ever gonna be anyone else for me, might as well lock it down, right?”

“You sure you know what you’re doing? That was a hell of a fight you two had yesterday,” Steve pointed out. “Just --”

“Don’t even go there, Rogers,” Bucky said. “Ain’t the first time we fought, won’t be the last time, neither. Ain’t about not fighting, it’s about how we fit together after that. And you _know that_ , damn it; I’ve been caught in the crossfire between you an’ Jones more’n once. You’re supposed to be happy for me.”

Steve flushed a little, at that. “I am,” he said, breathless. “God, Bucky. This is what we always wanted, you an’ me. Family. Married. Can’t see Tony putting up a white picket fence, but… yeah. I’m happy for you. Can’t blame a guy for wantin’ to make sure you’re going to be happy, that this isn’t some over-compensating for a big argument.”

“I’m gonna put that down to your mile-wide overprotective streak and not some sort of dumb-ass commentary on me.”

Steve raised a fist as if he was going to punch Bucky in the shoulder, then decided against it. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything else so much as for you to be happy, so make of that what you want.”

“I am,” Bucky said, simply.

“Well, if anyone deserves it, pal, it’s you,” Steve said. He put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’m honored.”

“Damn straight, you are,” Bucky said.

***

_Tony_

“How long have we been dating?”

Tony looked up from the experimental engine schematics and tried to redirect his brain.

Bucky was leaning in the doorway, left hand tucked in his pocket and his legs arranged just so -- it was his “this is important but I don’t want you to think it’s important” pose.

Which as often as not boded ill for Tony. “Um. Are you asking that because you’ve forgotten, or because I did?” JARVIS scrupulously reminded him when there was an occasion coming up that Tony needed to remember, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that JARVIS had said something and that Tony had forgotten it again immediately.

Bucky shrugged, still all faux-casual. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. I just want to be sure this is what you really want.”

That was unexpected. “I’m sorry?” Tony said. “What I really want? Have I said something to make you think--”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Bucky reassured him hastily. “You’re great, babe. I was just reminded that you... you kind of tend toward grand gestures sometimes, without really considering all the consequences. Especially when you’re... feeling rocky.”

Oh, Christ, _this_. “You’ve been talking to Pepper, I take it,” Tony said drily.

“No...” Bucky said, but he was hedging, so if it wasn’t Pepper directly, then it was someone that Pepper had talked to.

“You want to know if this is our forty-foot rabbit,” Tony said.

“Tony, I love you, you know that, right?” Bucky said. He sounded slightly desperate. “I don’t need it to be official and legal or whatever.”

“Oh my god, Sergeant Stressball, take a breath.” Tony held out a hand, offering, and waited until Bucky came across the room to take it. “I did not propose as a _gesture_ , okay? If I was going to make a _statement_ or something, you can damn well better believe I’d have put a lot more thought into it, and it would’ve been a hell of a lot more impressive than that.”

Bucky took Tony’s hand and pressed a kiss into his palm. “I dunno, it was sorta impressive. Impressive as to how knocked out of my wits you made me.”

Tony suppressed a smile. “Do you have to have lessons for that level of cheese? Because, really, that was terrible. I don’t even know what to do with that, honestly.”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky said. “Sure there’s some mathematical formula for the difference between awkward sincerity and over-the-top cheese. You let me know when you find it, okay, babe?”

“Find it?” Tony complained. “Sweetheart, I _live_ it.” He grinned and kissed Bucky’s forehead. “I love you. I want to marry you. Stop talking to Pepper or Natasha or whoever put that dumb idea in your head.”

“Well, Jaime’s happy for us, at any rate,” Bucky muttered.

“Jaime’s always been uncommonly smart. Takes after his dad, like that.” Tony hesitated a beat. “I mean me, by the way. Just to be clear.”

“Clear as glass, baby,” Bucky said. He nuzzled at Tony’s neck. “He already asked that, you know. If that was going to make you his dad. I thought Rikki was going to throw up, but she seems okay now.”

“Yeah, the girl and I had a chat. Came to an understanding. Won’t promise rainbows and roses, but I think she’ll stop actively fighting me, at least for a bit.”

“I only need one promise, Tony,” Bucky said. “The one where you say ‘I do.’”

  
***

_Clint_

The nice thing about Thor being a minor deity is that he technically fit the definition of a clergyperson. The bad thing about Thor being a minor deity from another dimension was that he didn’t have any paperwork to back it up.

Except he did.

And it was all in Asgardian.

The Quest to get a license to officiate a wedding in the City of New York had become a tangle of red tape.

Thor had his official paperwork, declaring him the son of Odin. And he had some ancient papers, crinkly and smelling of preservatives from a museum in Norway, written in Futhark, that clearly declared Odin the King and Father of Gods.

And they had Jane Foster along, to translate those runes, a Nobel-awarded scientist and expert. Admittedly, her work that had gotten her the Nobel was on interdimensional physics, but she did read Futhark, so technically, it was _an_ area of her expertise.

At least the problems Clint had foreseen hadn’t been an issue. Thor was often impatient with Midgardian customs and practices. “Tiny and petty,” was one of his favorite phrases in times like these. Except that Nat had said to him, “it’s not about love, in this case. It’s about taxes.”

Taxes, apparently, were a thing that Thor understood.

So despite Clint’s fears, Thor tolerated the bureaucracy and the process and the seven separate trips to Worth Street, where the City Clerk’s office was located, to double-check and verify all the paperwork.

On the plus side, without a doubt, when Thor put his seal on the paperwork, Tony and Bucky’s marriage was going to be as god damn (ha! He made a pun!) official as it could _possibly_ be. Thor’d had to prove his status as a resident of New York City (with a special work visa, because Thor wouldn’t accept dual citizenship, he was a prince of fucking Asgard, that’s why!) and his legitimacy as the son of Odin and Odin’s status as head of the church in Norway. And and and. There probably wasn’t another man in the _country_ with so much paperwork declaring him an official anything.

On the bad side, Clint was now officiant wrangler in chief. Which meant helping Thor with all the other details about Midgardian weddings. Which Clint knew almost zip about, having been to… three weddings before in his entire life, and one of them had been a fake one between him and Nat, which had been the lead-in to a mission gone really fucking crazy, and his main memory for that had been having to kiss Nat and make it look real, even though that had been after the two of them had already decided that they were not sexually compatible _at all_ , so it was like kissing his sister -- no, no, worse, it was like kissing his _brother_. Ug.

And then there’d been Nat’s _actual_ wedding, which he remembered almost not at all, because he’d been still reeling from the shock of Coulson being alive. With Phil on his left, letting his fingers brush against Clint’s shoulder from time to time, and Darcy holding fast to his right hand, and watching the woman he loved more than life marry the man who made her happy, Nat’s wedding had been all about feelings, which meant the exact words and little rituals that weren’t actually important… had sort of faded into insignificance.

So Officiant Wrangler in Chief Clint had gone and dug up a bunch of movies and shows about weddings, or wedding disasters. _The Princess Bride_ \-- they’d watched that before, but the first time hadn’t particularly concentrated on the wedding, more interested in the sword fights and the witty repartee. _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ , if for no other reason than the movie was an ode to really terrible hairstyles. _Father of the Bride_ (but not the sequels, because just no). _Bridesmaids_ , and several episodes of _Say Yes to the Dress, Bridezillas,_ and _Marriage Boot Camp_.

“Anthony and James argue much less than these couples,” Thor pointed out. “Should we let them know they are not taking these rites seriously enough?”

“No, no,” Clint said, hastily, “we don’t cause drama. That’s not your job. Your job is just to say the words at the ceremony and get the signatures where they’re supposed to be. The bridesmaids -- that would be Steve and Nat -- are the ones supposed to be causing the drama.”

Both of Thor’s enormously expressive eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “According to these missives, one or the other of them should be attempting to seduce Anthony.”

Clint was going to say something, he really, really was, but then the bridesmaid flipped the caterer over the table at the sample banquet and he leaned in to watch her technique, and by the time the cat-fight was over, he’d forgotten.

***

_Natasha_

In retrospect, Natasha really should have learned better by this point. She should have been expecting it, counting on it, braced for it, and have a contingency plan in place. Dinner was good and relaxing, and she’d gotten through an entire day in the same shirt -- Zoya hadn’t spit up on her, and she hadn’t had an emergency boob-leak. (Those had happened several times before she got the whole nursing thing down to a sort-of science. It was science of hopes and prayers sometimes, but at least she and Zoya were on some sort of schedule).

Bruce had the baby, which was completely adorable, playing a one-sided version of Peek-a-Boo which mostly involved Zoya poking her father in the nose whenever he showed his face. Her aim was getting better; she hadn’t almost gouged out his eyeball in _weeks_.

She’d finally, _finally_ gotten Cho to sign off on her Return to Active Duty paperwork, now that Zoya was old enough for solid foods -- Captain Steven G. America had gotten it into his patriotic head that it would be bad for the baby if Natasha were to get injured or dead in a battle and leave the child motherless while she was still nursing. (Eyeroll. As if formula wouldn’t be fine, if Natasha was careless enough to get herself dead.) But she wasn’t thinking about that, because it had been a good day.

It had been a very, very good day.

And then…

“So, Steven,” Thor said, after wiping chicken grease off his fingers, because Thor never ate meat with bone in it except for with his fingers, even when it was dripping sauce. “How fares your attempted seduction of Anthony?”

Steve had choked.

And Yasha had tipped his glass of tomato juice over. The juice promptly ran across the table like a bloodstain and spilled into Natasha’s lap, making her cold and sticky in one fell swoop. So close, she’d been _so close_ to getting through a day without having to change clothes.

“Excuse me, _what_?”

And Jess had turned an utterly cold and fascinated smile on Steve and said, “Yes, Steve, tell us, how is that going?”

Jaime looked like he was about to protest, and Rikki’s mouth was hanging open. Tony’s eyes widened and he looked back and forth between Thor and Yasha several times before he set his knife down very carefully and said, “I don’t know what the hell is happening, but I want it clearly understood that it is _not my fault_.”

“Is that not how it goes? That one of the wedding party must make an attempt for the groom, that their love be sure tested, or found wanting?” Thor himself looked perplexed. “For surely, I have seen many such examples in the educational materials provided.”

Clint groaned, hiding his face in both hands.

“Nor has Sergeant Barnes challenged the caterer to a trial of combat,” Thor continued. “From the examples given, I fear this marriage will be sadly untested. Surely, there is not much time left, to complete these tasks.”

Steve continued to cough and splutter and turn red in the face. “I am not, not, I repeat, not going to attempt to seduce _Tony_.”

“Well, now I’m just hurt, Cap,” Tony said, and he was smirking, which was never a good sign. “Don’t you want to make sure of my deep and unshakeable commitment to your BFF?”

“Somebody’s been dipping into the cable-networks,” Bruce commented, then went back to pretending to eat Zoya’s fingers, which made the baby girl squeal with delight.

Natasha leaned over the table and grabbed a stack of napkins. “You might at least apologize for soaking me in juice, Yasha.”

“<Sorry,>” Yasha said. “<Too busy trying not to visualize.>” He covered his eyes with his metal hand, as if he could block out intruding thoughts.

Which made Natasha choke on air and glance sideways at the two men, one beet-red and waving a protesting hand around without being able to form coherent sentences, and the other sly and somewhat smug. She really needed to practice before she went back into the field; being around a baby all the time had gotten under her defenses and she was showing entirely too much shock, surprise, and admittedly, a certain amount of satisfied glee.

“<Stop smiling,>” Yasha said.

Rikki had figured out that it was all in fun and was rolling her eyes hard enough to sprain them.

“<They’d make a lovely couple, I think. It’s only fair, the last several press articles have been pairing _me_ up with Tony. Seems that someone else should have a shot.” >

Tony started laughing, that deep, rolling laugh that meant he wasn’t going to be able to stop anytime soon. He was already clinging to the edge of the table with one hand as if preemptively stopping himself from sliding under it, the other hand covering his face.

“Not happening,” Yasha said, firmly, directing a somewhat suspicious glower at his best friend.

“I didn’t do anything!” Steve protested wildly. Tony started laughing even harder.

“Yet.”

Natasha didn’t even know who said that, but someone was stirring the shit.

“Ah, see, noble archer,” Thor said, gazing around with no small amount of satisfaction. “We are perfectly capable of bringing the drama.”

And suddenly all the attention at the table was directed down at Clint. “Care to explain, _noble archer_?” Yasha was scowling, his murderous glare firm-fixed and his jaw twitching.

“Reality television isn’t real,” Clint protested. “I’m sure this has been covered before. Not _Biggest Loser_ , not _Survivor_ , probably not _Dancing with the Stars_ , and most assuredly not _Whose Wedding is This Anyway_.”

That was it for Tony; he slid completely under the table, cackling.

“You know,” Jessica said, shaking her head at the vast amounts of idiocy going on, “I was a bridesmaid in my cousin’s wedding. She had like ten of us, all in a row, wearing these terrible lilac frilly dresses, and she got all upset about something silly. Her mom, my aunt, said, ‘You know, Janice, the only thing a successful wedding needs is for you to be married at the end of it.’”

“That’s it, that’s it,” Tony said, crawling out from under the table. “You--” He pointed at Jessica. “--are in charge of wedding planning. You.” He turned to Thor. “No more reality television for you.” To Thor. “And you, Clint. You’re grounded. For like the next twenty years.”


	3. Doomed for All Time

_Bucky_

When God said, “Let there be light,” someone shoulda shot Him. Bucky would do it himself, except he was pretty sure that he couldn’t aim straight at the moment. And maybe not for the next several weeks.

“Oh, my God,” he said, rolling very slowly over onto his back. There was a lump in the bed next to him. He blearily opened one eye to see an even paler than usual Steve Rogers next to him, eyes squeezed shut, trying to still be asleep and failing. At least Steve was dressed, which was more than could be said for Bucky. What the actual fuck? Bucky patted himself down, very carefully. Yep. One hundred percent naked. He didn’t remember that happening. “How much did we drink?”

“Shut up, Yasha,” said a muffled voice from his other side.

“Where are my clothes?”

“In the river,” Steve contributed, waving a hand. “Ug, I’m gonna…” Steve rolled over, shaking the entire bed -- where the HELL were they? -- and retched onto the floor.

Bucky let his eyes slip closed again. “Why?” It was possible that had come out as something like a whine. It was certain that Bucky didn’t care.

“Why what?” Tash mumbled. “Why did we drink so much? Why did we throw your clothes in the river? Why did someone cut my hair? ...Who the hell cut my hair?”

“Why can’t someone kill me now?” Steve sniveled, rolling back onto the bed, with more jostling and shaking of the mattress.

“Because I don’t like you that much,” Bucky said. Oh, sweet mother of Christ, his head hurt. “Did we have sex? Please, god, tell me we didn’t.”

“I would be hurt and offended, Yasha, if I wasn’t trying to move enough to strangle you for talking too much,” Tash said. “You wanted to get drunk on your last night as a free man. I got you drunk. Now, shut up before I have to kill you.”

“Do you usually get drunk and rut?” Steve asked.

“Not since I was twenty-four, but --”

“Oh, god, shut up, I remember that, I don’t want to remember that, Buck. Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

Someone’s phone alarm went off, cheerfully spitting R2D2 noises at them. All three of them groaned, in harmony, and buried their heads under the pillows. Which did not drown out the noise, and eventually Tash managed to drag herself out of the bed long enough to bang on the phone a few times.

“Crap,” she said. “We need to get moving if we’re going to get back on time.”

“I want my clothes,” Bucky said, petulant.

“The river’s frozen,” Tash reported, peering out the window and squinting her eyes almost shut. “You can probably just go pick ‘em up.” She put one hand to her head, whimpering. “I hate you. I hate you so much. I’m going to have to wear a wig for your wedding and that’s going to make my head hurt even _worse_.”

“Pretty sure something died in my mouth,” Steve muttered, looking around the tiny cabin. “Is there anything to drink around here?”

“The last thing you need is more booze, Rogers,” Tash said.

Bucky went to the door and opened it, letting in waaaay too much sunlight reflecting off ice and snow. Both his cabin mates protested, shielding their eyes. Bucky snapped off an icicle from the roof and handed it to Steve. “Melt it,” he said. “Then you can drink it.”

Steve looked down at the dripping ice, then cracked it in half. He dropped half in a bowl on the table and pressed the other half of it against his forehead.

“Huh,” Tash said. “Lemme know if that helps.”

The snow was of the graupel variety, pellets or soft hail, and very uncomfortable to walk on. Bucky crunched through the icy rime to get to the river, where he found his clothes stuck to the slick surface. He had to kneel down and use his body heat to melt them free. It had been quite a while since he’d been forced naked into the snow, and none of those occasions had been anything he wanted to think about.

Worse yet, he looked down at himself and saw very clearly what had been done while he was either so drunk he couldn’t remember, or passed out. He stared, not quite willing to believe it. He closed his eyes, counted to ten in three different languages, and looked again. It was still there. Please, god, he thought, not my face.

He peeled his clothes off the river and took them back inside, snapping as much of the ice off as possible. It wasn’t going to help, he knew. He was going to have to wear wet clothes while they hiked back to the Quinjet. On the plus side, it’d probably cure the hangover.

As soon as he got back into the cabin, he shoved Tash out of the way, peering in the mirror. Oh, thank god, none of it was going to show over the collar of his tux. Still. Not good. Not at all.

“I hate you both,” he said. “So much.”

Bucky shivered and shuddered as he pulled on his wet, frozen clothes. Even wet clothes were better than no clothes. Theoretically. His skin was pulling up in gooseflesh and trying to flinch away from the cloth, so maybe not.

“All right,” he said, finally, toes cringing away from his wet socks inside his wet boots. “Let’s get moving. I’m getting married today.”

Steve had fallen asleep again, sitting at the table, and Bucky banged the bowl down next to his head. “Move it, soldier.”

Steve peered up at him, blinking in confusion. “Sleep, Buck? Just five… five more minutes.”

Bucky slammed the bowl down again and it cracked. “Get. Up. I can’t carry your ass, Rogers.”

Steve sighed, then puked on the floor again. “I hate you both,” he said, slowly getting to his feet.

“Join the club,” Tash said, “we’ve got jackets.”

Tash put them on the ceiling and then ramped the ‘jet up to almost its full potential (Bucky had heard that under ideal conditions, the Quinjets could manage Mach 8, but even Tash wasn’t that reckless while all three of them had hangovers) and managed to get them back to New York in just under four hours.

It was ridiculous o’clock in the morning in New York, which was great, because Bucky fell into bed for another three hours, then showered, shaved, and had a coffee, which made him feel only as bad as if someone had hit him in the head with a sledgehammer and not like he wanted to commit suicide by ice-pick. The shower didn’t help with his _other_ problem, however, and he dedicated a few minutes to considering very inappropriate revenge pranks.

Someone knocked on the door just as Bucky was putting the finishing touches on his tux. “Oh, Pepper,” he said, opening the door. “Thank God, I was just going to call you, I--” He held out a shaking hand. “Could you do up my tie for me?”

Pepper took a deep breath. “We have a problem.”

“Which is?” _A successful wedding,_ he reminded himself, _is being married at the end of the day._

“Tony’s missing.”

“ _What_?”

“I’m so, so sorry,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Dr. Strange and Reed Richards showed up last night and took him and Rhodey off for Tony’s bachelor party, and I was rather rudely not invited and… no one’s seen them since. Any of them. Their cell phones aren’t receiving calls. I don’t know where they are.”

“Jesus fuck.” He checked his watch. Forty-three minutes until the wedding. And he’d been stood up. Which was preferable to all the other fucking options, because the alternative was Tony dead in a bachelor party gone wrong, or stranded in some alternate dimension because that sounded like exactly the sort of “fun” that Strange or Richards would plan. “Do up my tie for me. And delay. We’ll give them as much time as we can.”

Pepper nodded and tied the tie. “You look amazing,” she said, stepping back to glance over him in the pure white tux. “Tony’ll be sorry he missed it.”

“He won’t miss it,” Bucky said, firmly. “ _He won’t_.”

***

_Tony_

Tony looked over Reed’s shoulder again. “Should that green wire be attached there?” he asked. Calmly. Casually.

“Yes, that’s where it’s supposed to be, Tony,” Richards said. “This would go a lot faster if you’d stop trying to back-seat drive my repairs.”

“It’s just that I’m supposed to be getting married in _ten minutes_ ,” Tony said, and he made a real effort not to snarl it, he wanted that noted: he made the effort, however unsuccessfully.

Rhodey wrapped an arm around Tony’s shoulders and pulled him away from Reed. “Come on, man, let him work,” Rhodey said.

“He is going to blow us up or strand us in this godforsaken dimension forever,” Tony predicted gloomily.

“Strictly speaking,” Strange said, “this dimension isn’t at all godforsaken. Not anymore.” His mustache twitched.

Tony was really glad that his facial hair was more dignified than Strange’s and didn’t twitch like that. “Why can’t you just bibbity-bobbity-boo us home?” Tony demanded. “Why are we stuck waiting on Reed when I am eight minutes from being killed by Pepper and dumped by Bucky?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Barnes is not going to dump you,” he said.

“I notice you didn’t contradict me about Pepper.”

“That’s because she will, in fact, kill us all if you are so much as thirty seconds late for the wedding,” Rhodey agreed. He eyed Strange. “Seriously, you can’t just...” He waved a hand vaguely.

Strange shrugged. “I could, I suppose, but this city is built on a dormant volcano, and the amount of power it would take to move us trans-dimensionally would almost certainly set it off, destroying most of the city and its inhabitants.”

A shower of sparks burst from Reed’s device. “Damn it, Reed, if you’ve broken it for good,” Tony started.

The shower of sparks sputtered and then turned into a column of light.

“Oh blessed gods, is it fixed?” Tony groaned. He ignored Strange’s undignified giggle.

“Just in time, too,” Reed said, not looking up as he flipped switches and tapped buttons to set their destination. “We’re shaving it rather close.”

“That’s what I--” Tony’s tirade was cut short by a firm shove in the middle of his back.

“Shut up, Tone, and walk into the light,” Rhodey instructed. “How fast can you get your tux on?”

“To avoid death by Pepper? Three minutes. Good thing we already had baths.”

“Good. Now march.” Rhodey shoved him again, and the light engulfed him.

Tony stumbled out of the light and into -- okay, Reed was provisionally forgiven, because this was his dressing room, and the tux was already hanging on the back of the door, waiting for him. Tony spared two seconds for a sigh of relief and began stripping down even as Rhodey and Strange followed him.

The light blinked out. “Reed?” Tony asked, though he didn’t really care; there were two minutes remaining. He yanked on the tux trousers.

“He’s going to come out somewhere else,” Strange said. “He didn’t want to crowd things.”

Rhodey was undressing, too. “Stephen, man, can you go get--”

“On it,” Strange said. He twisted his fingers -- oh sure, _now_ he could manipulate time and space -- and Rhodey’s dark grey tux appeared in midair. Strange caught it before it could fall to the floor and get wrinkled. “I’ll just go let Ms. Potts know you’re nearly ready, shall I?”

“Brilliant,” Rhodey said.

Tony’s hands were shaking suddenly, too hard to do up the buttons of his shirt. Rhodey batted them aside and started doing them for him. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “We made it. Pepper will give us the death glare, but these things never start on time anyway, it’ll be fine.”

“Not sure I’d recognize Pep if she wasn’t glaring at me,” Tony joked weakly. He’d normally argue and fuss, but he stood still and let Rhodey do up his shirt and thread the tie through his collar. “This is really going to happen,” he said.

Rhodey smiled warmly. “Yeah, Tony. It is. You ready?”

 _Not in the slightest_ , Tony nearly joked, but that was _Bucky_ out there waiting for him, and their family waiting to witness, and Tony had never been more ready for anything in his whole life. “I think I am,” he said.

Rhodey patted his shoulder. “Good. Give me thirty seconds to finish getting dressed.”

“Not sure we’ve _got_ thirty seconds,” Tony said, glancing at his watch, but he stepped back to watch as Rhodey quickly dressed, easy and smooth with half a life’s practice at jumping into uniform at all hours.

They were no more than two minutes late when Tony opened the door to find Pepper standing outside it, hand raised to knock. She startled back, then her eyes widened. “Oh, thank god,” she whispered. “You’re really here.”

“Did you think Strange was lying?” Rhodey asked with a grin. He leaned past Tony to kiss Pepper’s cheek. “You look amazing.”

She did, but then Pepper always looked amazing. She blushed, but then shook her head. “Come on, we need to hurry. Everyone’s waiting.”

She led them down a hallway, dim and abandoned, until they found Bruce waiting by a door, somehow managing to look slightly rumpled despite the perfect order of his tuxedo. Tony grinned -- some things were universal.

“Where were you?” Bruce asked. “We were getting worried.”

Tony exchanged a look with Rhodey. “What happens on Glasbor IV stays on Glasbor IV,” he intoned. Bruce rolled his eyes as Pepper briskly brushed all three of them down and adjusted their boutonnieres. “It was fine,” Tony said. “We had some vehicular problems, that’s all.”

Rhodey coughed into his fist and Pepper poked him. “Stop smirking and get ready,” she hissed. “They’re about to start.”

Sure enough, the very faint music that Tony could hear on the other side of the door swelled in volume and changed tempo. “That’s our cue,” he said.

In rehearsal, Tony had thought they looked more like rival gangs marching toward each other for battle than a wedding party -- Rhodey and Rikki each leading their small groups, with Tony and Bucky following, flanked by their chosen witnesses. They’d rolled their eyes and made faces during the practice run, trying to get each other to crack up.

It didn’t seem as funny, now. Rhodey’s shoulders were very straight, his chin lifted proudly. Pepper took Tony’s arm and her eyes were already damp, and Bruce’s were warm and solemn.

Past Rhodey, Tony saw Rikki coming toward them. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her dressed up like this; it was a hell of a transformation. She caught Tony’s gaze, and nodded, very slightly.

And then Tony saw Bucky behind her, and everything else paled. For a moment, Tony couldn’t even breathe, for how utterly perfect Bucky looked, and how overwhelmingly Tony loved him.

It was only Pepper’s hand on his arm and Bruce’s warm presence at his side that kept Tony moving forward.

Bucky looked nearly as awestruck as Tony felt, and that let Tony finally draw a breath again, just as the two groups met at the front of the room.

“My friends,” Thor intoned, and Tony reluctantly tore his gaze from Bucky.

Thor was always an impressive figure, a good head taller than Tony and broader even than Steve, but today he was downright imposing, regal and commanding. There was no forgetting that Thor was a prince set to inherit an empire that spanned planets. No wonder the ancient Norse people had thought him a god.

“I call upon you now to witness,” Thor said, looking out at their gathered friends, “the marriage of our companions and shield brothers, Anthony and James. Who brings Anthony before us, to be given into James’ keeping and care?”

Rhodey stepped forward. “Me,” he said with a grin, dispelling the aura of formality and awe. “Finally. Here, take him, and good riddance!”

“Sugarbear!” Tony protested, swallowing a laugh. This was _not_ how they had rehearsed it.

“No one else is gonna take your crazy ass, Tones,” Rhodey said, lips curved fondly. A chuckle rippled across the gathered guests, and Bucky’s eyes were dancing, so that was all right. Rhodey pulled Tony into a hug. “I love you,” he murmured. “Go get your man.”

Thor still looked weirdly regal despite the broad grin on his face. “And who brings James, to be given into Anthony’s keeping and care?”

Rikki, better behaved than Rhodey, stuck to the formula. “I do, his kin and companion.” She drew Bucky forward and kissed his cheek before retreating to stand with Steve and Natasha.

“Anthony, and James.” Thor looked from Tony to Bucky as he spoke. “You are bound this day as one. There shall be one end for you both, and together you shall remain, even unto death. Your oath is your consort’s bond; your happiness is his joy; your pain, his sorrow. Anthony, do you consent to be so bound?”

Tony looked at Bucky. “I do.”

“And James, do you consent to be so bound?”

“I do.”

Thor lifted his chin a fraction and looked out over the assembled friends and compatriots. “I call upon you each, gathered here, to stand witness that this pledge is given with full consent and in joyful acceptance, that they do engage to fulfill and observe the whole of the compact between them, and that it is given freely, without duplicity or cunning, and is impeded by no prior oaths or debts.” Good lord, Tony had signed business contracts that were less careful. “If any among you doubts these terms--”

The far doors burst open with a crash like a thunderclap. As one, the entire assembly covered their ears and turned to face the source of the noise. Bucky squared his shoulders and took half a step in front of Tony, protectively.

“ _Doom objects!_ ”

Tony put his hand over his face. Why. Why now? What had he done, in some previous life, to deserve this?

Victor von Doom strode up the center aisle, rumpling the nice carpet and bruising the flower petals that were supposed to cushion them as they left, arm in arm as newlyweds. “Doom objects!” he declared again.

Tony could practically feel Thor quivering in delight behind him. Bucky turned his head to raise an eyebrow at Tony. “Seriously?” he said. “Your mystery boyfriend is _Doom_?”

“Not,” Tony grated, “my boyfriend. Not ever. Let’s be clear about that. Not.” He stabbed a finger in Doom’s direction. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Doom has come to offer you one last chance,” Doom intoned, “to make the correct choice.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Go. Away,” he said, slowly and carefully. “I’m off the market; I’m _getting married_.” He turned to look at Thor. “Can you please say ‘kiss the groom’ now?”

“That would be out of order,” Thor said, “as you have not yet exchanged rings or vows.”

“Fine, be a stickler,” Tony grumbled.

“Really?” Bucky said, still staring at Tony. “ _Doom_?”

“Can we talk about this later?” Tony said. “Sometime after we’ve ejected our unwanted guest and finished getting hitched?” He glared at Doom. “Why are you still here?”

“You will marry Doom, and no other!” Doom declared.

“Seriously? We’re doing this now? Because I’ve got an entire room full of people who are going to side with me on this one.”

“He did this to me, too,” Sue piped up from the fourth row. “So embarrassing.” Doom turned to glare at her. Sue remained remarkably uncowed. “No one likes a guy who can’t take a no gracefully, Victor,” she said. “Go away now. Everyone’s dressed up all nice and we don’t want to fight you today.”

“I will gladly fight!” Thor proclaimed.

Well, _of course_ he would.

And now Natasha was holding a gun. Where the hell had she stashed a gun in that dress? The mind boggled.

“How many knives do you have on you right now?” Tony asked Bucky.

“Six. And there’s a pistol under the pulpit,” Bucky replied. “Doom, though? Seriously, Tony. I’m appalled at your taste.”

Tony gave Bucky a flat, unamused look. “Not. My. Idea.”

“Doom is not unprepared for resistance,” Doom said. He lifted one hand, metal-clad fingers curling--

_Flash! Crash!_

A jumble of machinery materialized in the air and promptly fell on Doom’s head, knocking him to the floor.

“What the--”

“Iron Man!” exclaimed the girl scrambling out of the top of the device, because of course she did. “Hi! What’s-- Ooooh, this is _that_ day, okay!” Doreen Green wriggled her tail free of the mess and perched on the time machine she’d stolen from Doom some five years ago. She looked even younger than the first time she’d rescued Tony from Doom’s clutches. “Sorry to interrupt!”

“You’re not the worst interruption we’ve had today,” Natasha said. She sounded amused.

“No?” Doreen leaned over and saw Doom’s prone form on the floor under the time machine. “Oh! So _that’s_ why I told myself I had to steal this thing!” She grinned cheekily and scampered down. “Oooh, nice ring.” She held it up, showing it to Tony. “You want it? It’s probably for you anyway.”

“No,” Tony said firmly. “I don’t want anything of his. Ever. At all.”

“Have it your way.” She dragged Doom out from under the machine -- she was quite a bit stronger than she looked -- and threw him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “We’ll just be going now, then,” she said happily. “You’re welcome!”

She paused on the threshold of the hatch she’d climbed out of to look back at Tony. “Remember this when I’m going to send you a request for Iron Man armor for a squirrel, okay? Because I will really have needed you to say yes to that. Okay? Okay! Bye-bye now! Have good sex!”

Everyone stared, flummoxed, as the time machine groaned and hiccupped and finally disappeared, leaving a vaguely Doom-shaped mark on the carpet.

“Is she even old enough to know what sex is?” Bucky said.

“No. No, she is not,” Tony said. “But I’m guessing she’s going to have told herself all about it before she sent herself here.” Well, now he knew why she’d returned their invitation to the wedding with a note saying she’d already seen it. Also, the thing she’d said that one time about the ring. Also-- No, stop that, he wasn’t going to sort through his memories to identify every single time-traveling squirrel reference. “Right. That happened. Can we please get back to--”

“Doom,” Bucky said, contemplatively. “Huh.”

Tony was never living this down, was he? “Wedding?” he said weakly. “Please?”

“What?” Bucky finally looked up from the spot Doom had been, and seemed to shake himself. “Yes, right. Of course.” He took half a step back, resuming his place.

Thor looked mildly disappointed that he hadn’t been able to christen (thoren?) the ceremony with some mayhem, but after a moment’s fumbling, found his place again and cleared his throat. “Having heard no _reasonable_ argument, then, I ask you to join hands and speak your vows.”

Bucky’s thumb brushed across the back of Tony’s hand once, twice. “I, James Buchanan Barnes, take you, Anthony Edward Stark, to be my husband, for better or for worse, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health. I swear to love and cherish you for the rest of my life, and beyond, if that’s possible.” His hands tightened on Tony’s, just a little. “You’re the first thing I look for each morning, and the last thought before I sleep.”

Tony’s breath caught in his throat. Of course Bucky had found a way to reference his compliance codes in his vows, the compliance codes that no one but Bucky knew, except that Tony’s name was the last of them.

It was a sweet and subtle reminder that Bucky had made his vows to Tony almost two years ago, carved them into the very bedrock of his mind.

Tony took a breath. Subtle had never been his style.

“The very first night that we met, you gave me a piece of yourself. Mind out of the gutter, Barton.” Tony waited for the laughter, then said, “No, actually. You didn’t just give me a piece. You gave me everything that you had to give. And then I was hurt, and you kept giving me _more_ , even though I was literally incapable of understanding it at the time. You’ve taken care of me when I was invalid. You’ve rescued me from more villains and monsters than my ego can bear to count. You’ve stood up to me when I was being an ass without ever threatening to walk away, and you’ve admitted your mistakes without even a trace of resentment. You’ve given me the family that I frankly never dared to dream of.” Tony looked past Bucky at Rikki, features softer than he’d ever seen them, then flicked his gaze toward the front row of seats, where Jaime and Sasha were sitting with Zoya, the three kids safely sandwiched between Jessica and Sam.

He looked at Bucky again. “You’ve proved your devotion in so many ways, and only ever asked for one thing in return, and it would take a bigger jerk than even me to refuse, even if it wasn’t something I very much want to give you. I, Anthony Edward Stark, take you, James Buchanan Barnes, as my husband. I will love and cherish you to the end of my days.” He hesitated, not because he was uncertain or that he didn’t think Bucky was paying attention, but because he wanted to make sure Bucky understood that he knew _exactly_ what he was saying, even if everyone else took it for a bit of flippancy. “I’m all yours.”

[ ](http://monobuu.tumblr.com/post/163180721539/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ceremony is a terrible conglomerate of ancient Norse wedding rites, modern Western tradition, and whatever else the authors felt like throwing in.
> 
> ETA: Art brought to us by the amazing [monobuu](http://monobuu.tumblr.com/post/163180721539/)!!!


	4. To Have and to Hold

_Tony_

Alone at last.

Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the reception, because he had. But it felt like it had taken _forever_ to make their farewells, to shake all the hands (again) and hug all the friends and kiss the kids and thank all the staff, but finally, _finally_ they had made their escape and were safely tucked away in a quiet and luxurious B &B outside the city.

“Really?” Bucky had said as they’d driven over the bridge. “You’re gonna make me spend my wedding night in _Jersey_? What the hell were you thinking, Stark?”

Tony had laughed. “I was thinking that no one would think to look for us here. Also, that I was hoping to keep you distracted enough that the location wouldn’t matter all that much.”

“I guess,” Bucky’d conceded. “That’d better be some impressive distraction, though.”

The instant the door was closed behind them, Bucky plopped down on the edge of the enormous bed, eyes dark and predatory as he watched Tony shed his tuxedo jacket. “So, about that distraction,” he purred.

Tony hummed and draped the jacket over the back of a chair, then straddled Bucky’s lap, setting his knees on the bed on either side of Bucky’s hips. Bucky’s hands curled around the backs of Tony’s thighs, steadying him as he leaned down to capture Bucky’s mouth in a light, teasing kiss. “I love it when you get that look in your eyes,” Tony said. “Like a hungry wolf that’s just spotted prey.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “You’re settin’ me up for the cheesy lines again, Zhelezoska, you are aware of that, right?”

“You know how much I like cheese,” Tony said, grinning. “But nah, I was just thinking...” He brushed the hair back from Bucky’s face, the light catching on the ring. “Much as I love it hard and fast and hungry, I thought tonight, of all nights, we should take our time. Savor the moment.”

Bucky caught Tony’s hand and turned it gently, watching the liquid gleam of light on metal. “You lead, I’ll follow,” he said, dropping a kiss into Tony’s palm, then traced his mouth up lightly until he brushed his lips against Tony’s ring.

Tony closed his eyes briefly, focusing on that soft touch, the unfamiliar but so-right weight of the ring and the gentle touch. _Married_ , he thought. _How about that._ He tugged his hand free and slid Bucky’s jacket off, bending to kiss the skin just above Bucky’s collar. He tossed the jacket behind him, aiming more-or-less in the direction of the chair.

“I think I’m going to blame Rhodes for our unexpected guest,” Bucky declared, unbuttoning Tony’s shirt. “He just had to say no one else would want you… doesn’t he know better, by now? You just don’t say shit like ‘it could always be worse.’”

“Rhodey firmly resists superstition, even in the face of evidence,” Tony said. He trailed kisses along Bucky’s jaw. That hint of five o’clock shadow was going to be delicious, later. He found Bucky’s mouth again for a kiss as his hands fumbled to untie Bucky’s tie and open the shirt collar.

With a sudden jerk, Bucky dropped his hands from Tony’s shirt and covered the side of his neck, for all the world as if he had a vampire bite that he’d suddenly remembered. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath that sounded vaguely like a threat, leaned over and clicked the light off.

Well, that was... unusual. Tony sat back. “What the hell?”

“My best friends are terrible, terrible people,” Bucky said, burying his face against Tony’s stomach. “I just want you to remember that.”

Tony blinked, then reached out to turn the light back on. “I’m going to guess this is something to do with your bachelor party,” he said. “Considering Reed and Strange managed to nearly strand us in an alternate _dimension_ , you’re going to have to have a damned impressive story to...” Tony trailed off in confusion, because as he was slipping fingers into Bucky’s hair, he thought he saw... something.

He pushed Bucky’s hair aside and tugged down the back of the shirt collar. Bucky whined plaintively, but Tony’s focus was on the crisp dark line on the back of Bucky’s neck. “Did... Did Natasha get you tattooed?” Tony asked. He had to immediately suppress a hysterical laugh.

“Uh…” Bucky blushed harder, his skin brilliant red against the white of his shirt. “I don’t think… I think it’s pen. I hope it’s pen. If it’s not pen, I’m going to feel a lot less bad about cutting her hair off.”

“I wondered what was with the sudden addition of a hat to her outfit,” Tony said absently. He rubbed gently at the mark. It didn’t smear, but it didn’t look quite like a tattoo, either. If he had to guess, Tony would bet it had been made with a marker. Permanent, apparently, but not quite as permanent as a tattoo, at least.

“She wanted me to hold her hair back while she puked. I didn’t feel like it. She got a… very sudden haircut with one of my knives. Then she threw my clothes in the river, so, you know. Typical evening out.”

Tony snorted. “I’d ask where Rogers was during this lovely exchange, but I’m not sure I want to know.” He nudged Bucky’s shoulder. “Come on, you might as well show me. I’m not going to _not_ look at you naked for the next two weeks until it wears off.”

“Seriously. Going to get them for this,” Bucky said. Slowly, not looking at Tony, he stripped out of the tux. Around his neck were beautiful Cyrillic words in Natasha’s best calligraphy handwriting. _Kiss here. Lick here. This spot is ticklish._ Bucky tossed the shirt aside and turned around. Across his back was a very good likeness of Tony’s face, obviously drawn by Steve. Natasha had traced her hand around on Bucky’s hip. _Grip here._

Tony put a hand over his mouth before he could laugh out loud, because Bucky was obviously embarrassed, and not in a good way. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t funny as hell. “How the... Just how drunk _were_ you all?” he finally managed.

“Tash was hungover,” Bucky pointed out. “Still. At the wedding.” He crossed his arms over his chest, hiding the detailed description between his nipples of exactly how hard he liked them sucked. “She knew this place, just north of Kazakhstan, where they put the vodka in the steam at the bathhouse, so you’re drinking and absorbing it through your skin and breathing it in, all at the same time. I never seen Steve so blitzed in my life. Not even when we were fourteen and we got into the schnapps.”

“Oh my god,” Tony choked. “That’s... Wow.” He dragged a fingertip across the words that ringed Bucky’s neck, just low enough to be hidden by the shirt collar. Even utterly wasted, Natasha was still careful. _Kiss here_. Tony nuzzled his way under Bucky’s tucked chin and did as instructed.

Bucky’s breath caught in his throat and he tipped his head back, just a little, to give Tony better access. “Tony,” he said, soft, easy. His hands came up on Tony’s arms, pulling him a little closer.

Careful, and apparently correct. “Yeah, honey,” he said. _Lick here_. Tony dragged his tongue across the words, a wide, hot stripe, and then traced each letter carefully.

“Not… not fair,” Bucky whined, then his eyes fluttered shut and he straight up groaned as Tony’s mouth moved over each letter.

“Maybe not, but it _is_ delightful,” Tony said, smirking as he breathed over the ticklish spot (he’d already known about that one) and moved on to _Suck here_. “One hundred and one things to do with a naked super-soldier. Remind me to thank her.”

“Not like _you_ need a manual,” Bucky complained, then arched into it when Tony’s teeth scraped along a particularly sensitive part of his shoulder.

“No, but I’m always in the market for new ideas,” Tony said. He traced the outline of the hand on Bucky’s hip. “It’d probably take half the night to make sure all of these were properly tested,” he observed.

Bucky blew air out so hard it ruffled his hair. “At least there’s this,” he said, and turned again, so Tony could see the metal arm. Where the red star used to be, someone had replaced those plates with a blue and silver arc-reactor symbol.

If he’d been standing, Tony’s knees would have given way. As it was, he stared for several long moments before touching the design with a shaking finger. “Steve didn’t paint that on drunk,” he said.

“It’s not paint,” Bucky said. “Rishka gave them the adamantium; Tash and Jaime made the plates down in your fabricator. Steve installed it for me last night.”

Tony’s lungs ached until he finally remembered to breathe. “God, I love you. I don’t even know what to say except that. I just.” He kissed Bucky again, hard and fierce and heated. “ _God_.”

Bucky twined a hand around the back of Tony’s neck, brought him in closer and kissed him, tongue darting out to brush against Tony’s lip, sighing softly into Tony’s mouth. “You said everything you ever needed to tell me earlier,” he pointed out.

“Maybe. But if you think I’m ever going to be _done_ telling you, then think again.” Tony traced the edges of his symbol on Bucky’s shoulder, and wondered if the thrill of that would ever fade. It certainly didn’t seem like it at the moment. He switched to tracing the seams and joints of the arm, working his way down toward Bucky’s wrist, smiling at the way Bucky shivered.

“ _Moy muzh_ ,” Bucky whispered, turning his wrist to cup under Tony’s face and tilted his chin up so Bucky could gaze at him. He kept his hand still, just lightly brushing. The plates in his palm, tiny and delicate-seeming, clicked and then stilled.

“All yours,” Tony agreed. He kept his eyes on Bucky’s as he tipped his head to kiss the palm. “You’re stuck with me now, husband.” The word felt strange in his mouth, but he looked forward to practicing it. He licked at the tip of one metal finger, then leaned in for another kiss, letting Bucky taste the tang of the metal on his own tongue.

Bucky leaned into the kiss, pressing Tony back until he was flat on his back. He moved slow, implacable, gentle but unstoppable, opening Tony to the kiss. He traced a hand down Tony’s chest and found the belt and fastenings of Tony’s trousers. He hooked the button undone and let the zipper down, right hand dipping into the opening there, brushing against Tony’s hip. “I can live with that,” he said, then fastened his mouth on Tony’s throat, licking and nipping, tongue moving with feather-light flicks across the jugular.   

Tony dropped his head back, arching into the touch and wordlessly asking for more. He slid a hand into Bucky’s hair, holding Bucky at his throat, revelling in the shivers each breath and touch sent down his spine.

Bucky’s breathing sped, harsh and quick. He crushed his mouth down on Tony’s, brutal and possessive, tongue forcing Tony’s mouth open and taking quick tastes. A hand twined in Tony’s hair, pulling his head back. “Tony, Tony, Tony,” Bucky chanted, between sensual attacks on Tony’s mouth. Then his kiss turned gentle, tongue sliding in and teasing. As if he was memorizing the taste of Tony’s mouth, branding Tony his with burning kisses. Bucky moaned into Tony’s mouth, straining, hard body rubbing against Tony’s. His dark head lowered and he bit lightly at Tony’s chin, then along his throat, shaking with hunger.

“Shhh,” Tony soothed, stroking his fingers through Bucky’s hair, down his back and side. “I’ve got you.” He nosed into Bucky’s neck and licked at the skin, nipped and bit and sucked, half-purring at the way Bucky writhed against him. “Go on and come for me, baby,” he said, low and dark. “Take the edge off, couple times if you gotta, ‘cause I want you to last when you’re in me.”

Impatient, Bucky stripped the rest of Tony’s clothes off, hands moving quick. “Never get enough of you,” he murmured, chasing a line of kisses down Tony’s chest and scraping his teeth light over Tony’s belly. “Ever.” He skimmed his fingers along Tony’s body, caressing, light and sweet. He hesitated, breathing hot, damp air over the length of Tony’s cock, then took a long, loving taste.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Tony breathed, fighting not to push up into it. “Don’t you dare make me come early; I’m not an Energizer bunny like you.”

Raising his mouth with a curse, Bucky dragged Tony into a tight embrace and held him fast. Bucky’s palm was hot against Tony’s cheek and his heartbeat was a thunder in Tony’s ear. Tony grabbed a handful of Bucky’s hair and took a few steadying gasps as the fire of urgency faded, slow and aching. “Tony,” Buck said hoarsely, touching his lips to Tony’s. “Sorry, babe. I got carried away.” Bucky dialed it down a notch, then rubbed against Tony, rutting against Tony’s thigh. “Can’t help it, you taste so good, I just want to eat you up.”

Christ, they’d barely gotten undressed and they were both already half-frantic with need; Tony wasn’t sure how well his “take it slow” plan was going to hold up. Not that it mattered, really. Pretty much any sex with Bucky was great sex. (Except that one time, with the thing. That experiment had _not_ gone well.) Still, slow had been the plan and they didn’t actually slow down very often; Tony figured he should put in some effort. He dragged in another breath and matched his own movements to Bucky’s steady rocking, peppering whatever skin he could reach with light kisses and trying not to read the instructions Natasha had left for him there. “I know,” he said, “I know, and I love it when you do. It feels so damn good. I just want to make this last.”

Bucky nodded against Tony’s arm. He traced a line down Tony’s shoulder to his wrist, then nudged Tony’s hand toward Bucky’s thick cock. There was even ink there, which said in bold Cyrillic: “Tab A.” Which was kinda nice that Natasha didn’t think Tony needed instructions on what to do with _that_. Bucky shifted against Tony’s hand with a low, guttural moan. Bucky shifted a little, licked his way down Tony’s chest and took tiny nips and bites at Tony’s nipple, drawing it into his mouth, licking firmly, then releasing to blow cold air over the abused skin.

The contrast of sensation set up a fresh burn of wanting under Tony’s skin, but that was all right, that was perfect, a low-grade, slow-burning build. He groaned and arched into it until it started to get too hot, then pushed Bucky over and wriggled between Bucky’s thighs, sliding down to lap at Bucky’s cock like ice cream.

Bucky slid his hands over Tony’s shoulders, growling in satisfaction. “You are _mine_ ,” he said, possessive and heated. He propped himself up on one elbow to watch, shifting, then gasped as Tony worked him. “Tony… oh.”

“All yours, soldier,” Tony agreed, and swallowed Bucky down right to the root, the thick head pressing hard on the back of Tony’s throat. Focusing on suppressing the gag reflex helped back Tony down a little, though the noise it dragged out of Bucky nearly cancelled that out. Tony would have smiled if his mouth wasn’t already stretched so much; he settled for a knowing squeeze of Bucky’s thigh.

All the muscles in Bucky’s thighs and belly tightened, rippling sinuously, as he shuddered and released, crying out. “Tony, _yes_.” Bucky’s hand gripped hard, the plates in his arm shifting with a rapid tattoo, servos hissing just beneath the surface as his fingers clenched then relaxed, leaving hot points against Tony’s skin. “God, the things you do...“

Tony pulled off with what he was pretty sure was a smug, self-satisfied smirk. He’d earned it. He crawled up the bed to lick into Bucky’s mouth with a hungry kiss. “All for you, gorgeous.”

“Damn straight,” Bucky purred, then relaxed, boneless, into the kiss, his hands gentle and soft, stroking down Tony’s back and cupping over the round curve of his ass. He brushed his mouth over Tony’s lip, then sought his ear, nipping at the shell. “Tell me what you need, babe.”

“Need... You’ve already given me everything I could ever need,” Tony said, because he was a not-so-secret romantic at heart. But Bucky already knew that, so that was okay. Bucky’s breath on his ear made him shudder and shiver, half-ticklish and half-erotic. “What I _want_ , though, right now, is for you to slick me up and work me open, so I can ride you.”

Bucky shot a glance at Tony, pure heat and lust, his bottom lip caught in his teeth. “Nnnngh,” he managed, then, dark and low in Tony’s ear, he whispered, “you’d think I’d learn not to ask you, because _god_ , when you talk like that, it makes me _crazy_.” Bucky rolled over, searching, then swore. “Christ, the bags…” He growled, kissed Tony like he was saying goodbye, and scrambled out of the bed to fetch their overnight bags, digging in the front pocket for supplies.

Tony propped himself up on his elbows to watch, because it was _never_ going to get old to watch the way Bucky blushed and fumbled and lost words because of something _Tony_ had said or done. Also because someone had written _Spank me_ on the bottom of Bucky’s left butt cheek and that was funny as hell.

Bucky found what he was looking for and made a sharp triumphant sound, then turned, catching the amused look on Tony’s face. “What?” He sighed, then contorted painfully, trying to look at the writing on his back. “I hate her.” Bucky threw himself back on the bed, stretched out sideways, with his face buried in his hands.

Tony snickered, just a little bit, and patted Bucky’s shoulder consolingly. “I know, babe, I know. On the plus side, it’s not like she gave up anything here that I didn’t already know. Honestly, the drawing Steve did on your back is worse. I don’t think I could actually fuck you while looking at that.” He kissed the bit of Bucky’s cheek that wasn’t covered by his hands. “I’ll help you get revenge, I promise.”

Bucky raised his head, the look in his eyes particularly dark and did not bode well for Natasha or Steve. He scowled, then reached over and snapped the light off. Before Tony could protest or say anything, Bucky slithered down between Tony’s legs and swallowed Tony’s cock, tongue moving quick and hot over the sensitive skin, hands pushing Tony’s thighs apart.

Tony gasped and groaned, all words of protest sliding out of his brain. “ _Jesus_ , Bucky, that’s-- nnngh -- _god_ , so good.”

Bucky didn’t answer, his mouth moving like he’d given himself a mission to melt Tony’s brain and putting all of his implacable determination behind it. In the darkness, Tony heard the click of the lube’s cap, and then as Bucky swirled his tongue around the ridge of Tony’s prick, he slid one finger around Tony’s tight hole.

Tony cursed some more. He clung to Bucky’s hair with one hand and the sheets with the other and willed himself to relax. “Yeah, baby, like that, just like that. Bucky, honey, yes...”

Bucky hummed thoughtfully against Tony’s cock, vibrations racing through his throat, then pulled off with a wet, slurp. He wrapped his metal hand around Tony’s thigh and pushed it up and back, then dipped lower, his mouth and lips teasing at Tony’s balls, licking each one. He nuzzled at each one of Tony’s thighs, finger still working in him. Gentle, slow, teasing strokes that lasted endless moments, stoking the fire and holding it steady.

Tony twitched and writhed and gasped, and normally he’d be telling Bucky to get a move on, already, but he was the one who’d asked for slow, so. And Christ, he was a fucking genius, because it was the _best_ kind of torment, the burn of being stretched a counterpoint to the pleasure of each careful touch and lick and breath, like a hint of salt with something sweet that made the flavor that much richer.

***

_Bucky_

Bucky uttered a wicked, low chuckle, listening to Tony’s body writhing against the sheets. Bucky dropped all the way down onto the bed, then turned his head and gave a series of kitten licks around his finger, teasing wetly at the muscle around Tony’s hole. He waited, counting heartbeats, until Tony groaned and arched up, then twisted his wrist, his finger crooking inside Tony’s body, pressing up toward Tony’s prostate.

“Ogod,” Tony grated. “Bucky, Bucky, yes, please.” He strained, trying to get Bucky deeper still.

Bucky resisted, wanting nothing more to take, plunder, possess, claim ownership, but Tony wanted it to last, and so he worked slow, one finger until Tony was practically sobbing with need. Bucky kept up those teasing, tiny licks, sometimes working Tony over wet and thorough, then pulling back and nipping at Tony’s thighs, leaving little bruises against the tender skin. God, Bucky was so hard, aching and urgent. He twitched his hips against the bedcovers at each of Tony’s moans, muscles in his belly tight and burning.

“God, I love you,” Tony groaned. “Can feel you holding back, you’re so... Can’t believe you’re mine now.” His hand tightened, his body trembling. “My soldier, my husband.”

Bucky pulled out, long enough to slick his fingers back up; using his tongue to tease as he fumbled with the container, then slid two in without any hesitation. God, Tony was so sweet, so perfect. Bucky groaned as those muscles clamped down on his fingers. He worked in, twisted, then scissored, opening Tony up. “God, Tony, _yours_. Always.” Each twitch and moan ratcheted him up further until there was nothing in him at all but desire, wanting.

Then Tony was pushing at his arm, nudging, pulling, demanding. “Off, over, enough, I want--” Bucky went where Tony wanted, holding Tony’s hips so that Tony landed on top of him when he’d rolled over. Tony laughed, pleased and amused, then wriggled until he was straddling Bucky’s hips and leaning one hand on Bucky’s shoulder for balance.

“You could help,” he muttered, mock-irritable, trying to line them up.

Bucky laughed, voice stuttering as he shook with need. “Now who’s in a hurry?” He slid his hand down, circling his fingers around the base of his own cock, holding it steady. As Tony got adjusted, Bucky didn’t move his hand, gave him only the top few inches. God, that was _fine_ , so tight and hot, he groaned with appreciation as Tony wriggled and twisted against him.

“There’s appreciating the moment,” Tony said, a little breathy as he hissed and panted through the adjustment, “and then there’s dragging it out.”

“Appreciating _this moment_ just fine,” Bucky said. He pushed down into the mattress, then stroked up, just a little, letting the ring of muscle around Tony’s entrance squeeze over his cockhead, stopped just after the ridge and slid out again. “Oh, my god, Tony. _Tony_.”

“I know, baby, I know,” Tony groaned. “So good, you feel so fucking _good_.” His weight shifted and he sank a little further down. “Gonna... gonna ride you ‘til you come. Fill me up, make me feel every twitch and jump. Feel it all wet and hot inside me.”

Mother of _Christ_. Bucky thought he’d gotten over this level of blushing when Tony was around, but he could feel heat flooding his face and neck and chest. The only saving grace was that Tony probably couldn’t see it with the lights out. “That’s not gonna take long, with you wigglin’ about like that,” he said, moving his hands to grip Tony’s thighs. He rocked his hips, trying to keep himself controlled, muscles in his thighs quivering with the strain.

“Well, maybe I should hold out for twice, then,” Tony said, rocking down another inch. He hissed through his teeth and then hummed with pleasure. “Wha’d’ya think, baby?”

Bucky groped around in the sheets, then snagged the lube with his fingertips. A quick tip and he slicked his palm. He wrapped a hand around Tony’s cock and twisted his wrist. “You first,” he said, then arched up as Tony clenched around him.

“Oh, shi--” Tony dropped his weight onto his hands, on Bucky’s shoulders, and then whined as he dropped the rest of the way down onto Bucky’s cock. “Bucky, shit, babe, oh god...” He barely paused to finish acclimating before he started to move, lifting nearly off entirely and then down again, torturously slow, until Bucky was in him to the hilt. Again, with a low rumble of pleasure.

“Oh, Tony,” Bucky said, twisting his wrist the other way, sliding down Tony’s cock, stroking him to match Tony’s slide, slow and easy. “I… oh, now, come on, baby, _please._ ”

“Yeah,” Tony whispered, and his hips jerked as he shoved forward, hard, into Bucky’s grip and then back again to impale himself on Bucky’s cock. He was tight, so fucking tight, and his breath came out in keening gasps until Bucky’s thumb dragged across the head of Tony’s cock, rough and unsteady. Tony shouted and froze, quivering as he came, warm splashes landing on Bucky’s stomach and chest.

Bucky cupped Tony’s cheek, then thrust up, sliding through the shaking muscles, clenching and shivering around him. So, so lovely. Bucky cried out, pleasure so great it was almost agony. “God, so gorgeous, so perfect, Tony, I…” He shuddered all over, as he tipped over the edge, eager to fall. “Yes, yes. _Tony_.”

Tony slowed to a halt and let his weight drop onto Bucky’s chest, tucking his head into the curve of Bucky’s neck. His harsh breaths tickled the side of Bucky’s throat. “God, I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Bucky said, kissing the top of Tony’s head. “Mr. Stark-Barnes.”

Tony shivered. “I like the sound of that,” he said. “Mr. Barnes-Stark.”

Bucky arched up again, then fell back to the bed with a groan. “Yeah, me too. Good day?”

“Hm, well, let’s see. I was declared a deity of an alternate dimension, got to mock Reed’s science, married the best boyfriend ever, went to a party with all my favorite people, and then kicked off a vacation that I’ve been promised will be interrupted only for the _actual_ end of the world with some fantastic sex. Yeah, not too bad a day.”

Bucky laughed, which did interesting things to the place where their bodies still joined together. “Deity, huh? Well, there’s no topping that, really. But at least the wedding’s up there in the top ten, yeah?”

“Sounds more impressive than it actually was. I mean. They deified Richards and Strange, too, so you can’t really accuse them of particular taste. All in all, I think the wedding was better. Top five, for sure.” He was grinning; Bucky could hear it in his tone.

“It’s gotta be the hair… you all have that little swoosh thing going on,” Bucky said, absently running his fingers through Tony’s hair and making it stand up straight.

“Yeah, that’s probably it. I’ll call my stylist first thing we’re back after the honeymoon.”

“Nah,” Bucky said. “I’ll get Johnny to do something about Reed’s hair. You can always count on Storm to take a stupid dare.”

Tony snorted. “That’s true.” He smacked Bucky’s cheek with a kiss. “Best husband ever.”

“You may just be biased,” Bucky said. He groaned, then slid out, tipping Tony over to the side. “Stay put, I’ll be right back.” Cleaning up was required, but he didn’t really want Tony looking at him while they showered. Not that he had much choice; it was either going to be a rather celibate honeymoon, or Tony was going to have to see him sometime. _God damn it, Tash._  

He stepped into the suite’s bathroom and snapped on the light. Under normal circumstances the bathroom would be deeply inviting, including a huge jetted tub and a double-headed shower (maybe New Jersey did have a few things to offer) as amenities. He splashed water on his face, then frowned, leaning closer.

Oh, dear god, Tash. Bucky was very tempted, for just a moment, to call her and yell.

“Hey, Tony,” Bucky called, leaning back in the room.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Got a mission for you, darling, love of my life, husband, sweetheart.”

“Oh, this is going to be good...” Tony propped up on his elbow to look at Bucky.

Bucky ran his hand over his chest, where Tony had left a sticky puddle. His hand came away black with smeared ink. “It’s… um. Not permanent. Apparently your jizz’ll wash it off. I don’t even want to _know_ where the hell she got that pen from.”

Tony blinked. And then blinked some more. “Soap and water didn’t cut it, but... Huh.” He got that look on his face that meant he was doing scientific analysis in his head. “I... Okay.” His gaze sharpened suddenly. “Are you saying I get to _literally_ cover you in come this week?”

Deadpanned, Bucky said, “I know, it’s asking for a great sacrifice from you.”

Tony matched his solemn look. “I did just swear to stick by you for better or worse,” he said, “but this is really pushing it.” He held the expression for about two seconds longer before falling back onto the bed, giggling.

Bucky shook his head, grinning. “She was pretty thorough,” Bucky pointed out. “You’re going to walk funny for weeks.” He splashed off a bit in the sink, then brought Tony a wet hand towel and blotted him off, gently.

“It’s our honeymoon,” Tony returned. “Pretty sure that was going to happen anyway.” He curled a hand around Bucky’s neck and drew him in for a kiss.

Bucky leaned into the kiss, covering Tony like a blanket and pressing him into the mattress. He almost couldn’t kiss back at first; he was smiling too much to get it under control. He twined their fingers together and spread Tony’s arms out wide, then took possession of Tony’s mouth for a deep, tender kiss. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said, nipping at Tony’s neck. “I can start all over again.”

Tony tipped his head to give Bucky better access to his neck, but sighed with exaggerated mournfulness. “I might need a nap first. Trying to keep up with my young and virile trophy husband is tiring.”

“You can just lay there,” Bucky said, smirking. “I’ll do all the work.” Which he proceeded to do, until both of them were well sated and exhausted.

He cuddled up against Tony’s side, pillowed on Tony’s shoulder, at the very edge of sleep, then shook his head. “But, _Doom_ , though? _Really_?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Make sure you're subscribed to [the series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/554317) or the authors, because next week we've got a scorching-hot PWP featuring some very pretty red rope, and the week after that begins what is currently the final fic of the series, _The End of Tomorrow_!

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please come and scream at us on tumblr: [27dragons](http://27dragons.tumblr.com/) and [tisfan](http://tisfan.tumblr.com/)!


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